Evidence - Soundwalk collective & Patti Smith

Exhibition Catalogue Evidence - Soundwalk collective & Patti Smith, presented at Centre Pompidou, Paris (20 october 2022 - 6 march 2023).

Total artist, Patti Smith born in 1975 in Chicago, is a singer, rock musician, poet, writer, painter and photographer, inspired by the figures of Rimbaud, Artaud and Daumal.

“Evidence” is a poetic, immersive journey, an ode to a world without borders, a contemporary reflection on the infinite and universal, a spiritual quest for unity as a living and life-giving presence.

The physical, sound and visual voyages of Soundwalk Collective enter into infinite dialogue with the poetic trajectories of American musician and poet Patti Smith, creating a new vision and language through this exploration. Between audio, films, abstract images, objects and creations collected throughout their travels, this exhibition guides the public through a vast exploratory installation that juxtaposes photos, texts and original works by Patti Smith, from her personal collections and the Musée National d’Art Moderne and MoMA collections. As a testimony to the existence of these poets and their inspiration, it offers true immersion into their spirit and art.

Between 2019 and 2021, Stephan Crasneanscki and Patti Smith worked together to create Perfect Vision, a triptych of albums that draw inspiration from the texts of three iconic French poets: Antonin Artaud, Arthur Rimbaud and René Daumal. At the heart of the work is the necessity for these poets to travel to different horizons, to discover a new vision and perspective of themselves and their art. Recorded respectively in the Sierra Tarahumara in Mexico, the Abyssinian Highlands in Ethiopia and the peaks of the Himalayas in India, these albums are based on the idea that each landscape holds sleeping memories, testimonies to the passage of humans. Produced in collaboration with Grammy award winner Russell Elevado, Leonardo Heiblum, and Simone Merli, member of Soundwalk Collective, each album retraces the footsteps of poets, leading us through sound and musical landscapes, revisited by the incantatory voice of Patti Smith.

The publication reflects the immersive sound installation.