Patti Smith's 9/11 exhibition

 
The Hunter College Art Galleries present Patti Smith: 9.11 Babelogue. This exhibition, on view from September 8-December 3, 2011, comprises some twenty-six works on paper by the esteemed poet, performer, and visual artist Patti Smith as a response to the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. The artist’s elegiac homage does not align the Twin Towers with one nation, religion, or race, but instead offers them as symbols of the universal resiliency of the human spirit. Smith’s “9.11” series was created between 2001 and 2002 and will be shown in its entirety for the first time in New York, in the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery, to coincide with the tenth anniversary of 9/11. The Hunter College Art Galleries are honored to share this timely exhibition with the Hunter Community and the City of New York.
 Patti Smith, equal parts writer, performer, and visual artist, has been a pivotal figure on the downtown New York art and music scene since the late 1960s. Her transformative words and uncompromising commitment to art has inspired subsequent generations of musicians, writers, and artists. Smith’s work has been extensively exhibited in solo exhibitions internationally including Land 250 exhibition at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2008 and her upcoming exhibition Camera Solo at the Wadsworth Antheneum in Hartford, CT in October of 2011. She is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Musée National d’art Moderne, Centre Georges Pomipidou, Paris, among others.  The artist has been widely recognized for her multifaceted accomplishments. Smith was the recipient of the 2010 National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids, and has also been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2005, the French Ministry of Culture awarded her the Commandeur des Arts et Letttres, France’s highest honor for contributions to the arts and culture. Most recently, the artist was awarded the Polar Music Prize by the Stig Anderson Music Award Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden.
 The Hunter College Art Galleries, under the auspices of the Department of Art and Art History, has been a vital aspect of the New York cultural landscape since its inception over a quarter-century ago. This exhibition, titled Patti Smith. 9.11 Babelogue, organized by Michelle Yun, Curator of the Hunter College Art Galleries, underscores the galleries’ unique ability to share the highest levels of academic scholarship and curatorial connoisseurship with the general public, thus facilitating a dynamic cultural exchange.
 Patti Smith. 9.11 Babelogue is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue that includes writings by Patti Smith; a forward by Dr. Joachim Pissarro, Bershad Professor of Art History and Director of the Hunter College Art Galleries and a critical essay by Michelle Yun.