Patti Smith was right

Patti Smith was right

Patti Smith was right

these cold, known objects
                                 are not very likeable –
      aluminium frames
         & curved glass with optical tricks –
but I am ‘at ease’
     at this show,
there are some nice little-grin ideas –
          like television
                screening outside
            on the suburban home’s front lawn,
& time-delay verité videos
   to amuse the usually uncrackable
                                          hardened gallery-goer

                     *

have I flipped ?            into a strangely placid
            political zone               a lack of clutter
   and environmental concern –
these things are so simple,
                      two hours here & I begin to enjoy
                                                     Dan Graham
more than Soutine, Braque, Delaunay,
      Bourgeois, Basquiat, Sherrie Levine,
             Agnes Martin –                 although
I can not deny my memory
          of her beautiful mid-1960’s picture –
                             ‘Milk River’ –
nor her small collection
                of pick-up trucks – the green Chevie
      glinting with polish – the very driveable
  Dodge parked
outside her desert home.

                        *

I spend over an hour watching,
      surrendering to
            Dan Graham’s big “Rock/God” video
that makes a simple
             anthropological connection
                  between US tribal & religious ritual –
group dancing, shaking, speaking in tongues –
                                               and mosh pits and rock music –
            so when Patti Smith sings
“Jesus died for somebody’s sins
                                       but not mine”
                                                              I am converted.

                      *

Patti Smith was right,
                           twenty-five years ago,
to say that rock music,
                  meaning, then, for her, punk-rock,
would replace                   painting
                                                          & sculpture
       as representative of untranscended
                                                                    life itself.