Just Kids

"Yes, the rock star as artist and the artist as rock star! What I found so moving about this book is that it links the crucial elements of friendship and art to survival. The work of art stands as a souvenir of friendship, but also becomes in and of itself like a ‘friend’ that survives the people whose friendship it was preserving. So, if you think about that iconic portrait of Patti Smith by Mapplethorpe – long after Patti Smith herself has left, and long after we all have left, that portrait will still be attesting to the shared friendship between those two ‘kids’ in that moment, on that day, when it was taken. And in generations and even centuries to come, every time someone gazes upon Mapplethorpe’s portrait of Smith, the portrait will conjure those people, reinstantiating both the moment of friendship and the moment of making that portrait. “The work of art stands as a souvenir of a friendship” Patti Smith’s book is wonderful in that it is also a portrait of a particular New York that is very much gone. In a way, all of the eccentric, ambitious, crazy, and one-of-a-kind characters that the reader encounters within Just Kids might be compared with the various personalities in Vasari’s Lives of the Artists . Vasari writes the first edition in the 1550s, at a moment when art seemed to have reached its pinnacle and was perceived to be on the decline. I often think about that generation of artists in the 1540s in Rome as being comparable with New York in the 1970s. In 1527, Rome is sacked and there is an entire generation of artists who have little work because patrons have decamped and little money is left for grand projects. By the 1540s, work starts trickling through again, but Rome is just not the artistic capital that it was under Julius II during the High Renaissance. There is this entire city full of artistic hopefuls who really have to rely upon each other for friendship, for guidance, and for work as well. This is something that comes through so nicely in the set of drawings by Federico Zuccaro of his older brother’s journey through Rome in the 1540s. These are now in the J. Paul Getty Museum and capture, like Patti Smith’s Just Kids , a portrait of a historical moment where there’s both extreme poverty and optimism, where art and friendship mitigate very real social and economic dangers. “I often think about that generation of artists in the 1540s in Rome as being comparable with New York in the 1970s” Smith also narrates the uneasy relationship between artistic fame and artistic virtue. I think at one point she says about Mapplethorpe “we were both praying to save Robert’s soul, he to sell it and me to save it”. Money and art sometimes mix very badly. You can draw that conclusion, too, from reading Vasari’s Lives of the Artists . There is much criticism, for instance, of Sebastiano del Piombo, a Venetian painter who comes to Rome and gets this very cushy papal position, and then decides he doesn’t want to paint anymore. He just wants to live a life of comfort. Vasari is very, very critical of that. So, again, you have these contrasting positions and attitudes that different artists take towards the dream of becoming a famous artist. There is something so touching about the way friendship and survival somehow deposit themselves in the work of art, whether it’s a photograph, a painting, or, in Patti Smith’s case, a very moving memoir. Yes. A portrait is a pact between the artist and the sitter. It’s a confidence. For people who love to be photographed, that’s not an issue. I myself don’t like to be photographed because, well, it’s that sense of having to co-habit with this other self that represents me out there in the world. In this regard, portraiture is a very fraught activity. The primary betrayal that happens in portraiture, even now with the instantaneous editing processes of digital photography, occurs in that moment when you hold your breath before the image is taken and you think to yourself okay I hope I’ll look good in the photograph and perhaps I’ll even look better in the photo than I actually look in real life. Representation trumps reality! And I think that’s true certainly for painted portraits as well. There is always the desire to be slightly more idealised in the portrait than one was in real life because, of course, the portrait will stand in as a surrogate when you were no longer there. And you don’t want to be remembered as a slob in sweatpants with no makeup on. You want to be standing there with your best face forward looking radiant and forever young. Just like Dürer in his Self-Portrait . You want to be remembered as a super-hero version of yourself. Absolutely. Patti Smith’s portrait in Mapplethorpe’s photograph is one of the icons of casual cool. She could not have wished for anything better. And that comes back to the issue of friendship and trust as well because, and this is especially true in artist portraits, for one artist to be portrayed by another is an act of trust, of confidence. For example, Michelangelo hated portraiture, so for him to let himself be portrayed by Daniele da Volterra, who was his dear friend, was a real sign of friendship. To render yourself over as a subject is a small form of death somehow, especially for people who aren’t particularly fond of being turned into images. The lives of the artists, therefore, is also about a life lived as images, for better and worse. I know. I once found photographs of other people on Google also named Maria Loh, but who weren’t me and I was quite pleased because I thought oh good, maybe people will think those other Maria Lohs are me and the real me (whoever that is) can remain under the radar … in my sweatpants."

"MB: I would say Patti is the ultimate artist and I love the way her book reflects that. Her world revolves around being creative and her book Just Kids really inspired me as to how a young artist can have nothing and almost live on the street but can feel rich and happy inside. She is a true Poet!"