A Photographer and Her Punk Rock Muse: Patti Smith and Lynn Goldsmith in Conversation

The Morgan Library rests stoically on Madison Avenue; inside, it’s all hardwood floors and high ceilings. Signs point me downstairs toward an auditorium full of ruby red theater seats and New Yorkers wearing slick trench coats and cream sweaters. Poet and punk legend Patti Smith and the legendary rock-and-roll photographer Lynn Goldsmith are here to talk about their new book for Taschen, Before Easter After. There’s a moderator, Reuel Golden, but he feels out of place in the conversation: Goldsmith and Smith are where the real joy lies. The two artists have known one another for decades, and it shows. They narrate a series of photos projected onto a large screen, which the photographer took of the punk rock poet in her youth, with a goofy familiarity that is both genuine and exciting.

There’s a story behind every image that we see. A decadent and dramatic photo of the singer surrounded by funeral flowers was left over from an earlier shoot with the band Grand Funk Railroad. In another shot, Smith wears a gray Giorgio Armani jacket she says she bought after waiting for it to go on sale for months. Another photograph is breathtakingly quotidian: just Smith dipping her feet in the water on the beach at Coney Island. The colors are rich; Smith looks at peace. You could live inside a photo like that.

Before Easter After by Lynn Goldsmith and Patti Smith is out in November.

But it’s not all peaceful moments and glamour. Goldsmith and Smith talk about the time the singer fell off the stage and fractured several vertebrae in 1977. Goldsmith was there, and documented the drama of the event. We see Smith’s body rotate as it plunges from the stage and into hard cement. Photos follow, of her with paramedics, and on a stretcher. Hearing the two talk about the harrowing event and the art created in its wake is moving. “I’ve documented earthquakes,” says Goldsmith. “I’ve been in situations that have required me to step back. In this situation, since I feel so close to Patti, I asked her when she was conscious backstage, ‘Should we?’ and she was like, ‘Go for it.’”

After the artists finish discussing some of the images featured in the book, the program shifts to a performance from Smith, her daughter, Jesse Paris Smith, and Lenny Kaye of Smith’s band. Smith introduces each song with a story about how it came to be or why the song is important to her today. When she gets ready to perform “Because the Night,” she shows us the cover art used for the single and explains that the song is not about Bruce Springsteen or the ’70s, but is instead about her late husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith. To close out, she sings “People Have the Power,” and shares a photo of herself and her husband performing at Radio City Music Hall. She shares that she has just found out that young people protesting in Chile have been singing the song at marches. It’s surreal to watch Smith and company perform in such a formal space. When the set ends, I feel a little disoriented; I never thought my first time seeing Smith perform would be at a place like the profoundly unpunk Morgan.

At “An Evening With Lynn Goldsmith and Patti Smith,” Patti Smith performs live at the Morgan Library.
At “An Evening With Lynn Goldsmith and Patti Smith,” Patti Smith performs live at the Morgan Library.
Photo: Courtesy of LGL

The evening ends with a cocktail party. I drink Champagne from a flute and look at illuminated manuscripts in the old library while Smith and her daughter casually mingle. I could say hello, but I do not, because I am a huge coward. Slowly, people dissipate, and all I can think about is how special and strange it was to hear a legend perform music that I’ve been listening to since I was a teenager while sitting in an old theater chair on a regular Wednesday night in October. I don’t know if it was the perfect setting to experience Smith’s discussion and performance, but both transformed the evening in the way that only great art and music are capable of.

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Originally Appeared on Vogue