Friday 8 September 2006, 19.00

SOLD OUT

A unique evening of poetry and song performed by Patti Smith, in conjunction with the first screening on 16mm film in over a decade of Mapplethorpe and Smith’s collaborative work Patti Smith: Still Moving (1978). Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe met in 1967 and lived in the Chelsea Hotel in 1969 and 1970. In 1996, Smith published The Coral Sea in Mapplethorpe's memory; a collection of poems which William S Burroughs called 'a singular, glowing vision'. The event also includes a rare presentation of Nigel Finch's 1988 documentary. Made one year before Mapplethorpe's death, this is the only major broadcast featuring an interview with the artist.

This event is organised in collaboration with an exhibition at Alison Jacques Gallery, London focusing on Robert Mapplethorpe’s film work. The show reflects Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith's close association and includes early images of both, shot by photographer Judy Linn. An important group of Mapplethorpe photographs from the 1980s of bodybuilder Lisa Lyon will also be exhibited.

The gifted American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–89) is renowned for his objectifying, 'cool' eye and subject matter ranging from the sublime to the extreme. His rigorous formal composition and design underlies a body of work whose frequently homoerotic, sado-masochistic content sparked a firestorm of outrage that led to major debate about the public funding of art in the United States during the late 1980s.

Patti Smith (b.1946) is an American musician, singer, and poet. She came to prominence during the punk movement with her 1975 debut album Horses. Called 'punk rock's poet laureate', she brought a feminist and intellectual take to punk music and remains one of rock and roll's most influential musicians.

Tate Modern  Starr Auditorium
£10, booking recommended

SOLD OUT