2002
October
New York Blues: Rags,
Ballads and Harmonium Songs
Allen Ginsberg recorded by Harry Smith
Smithsonian Folkways
recording reissued on CD by Locust
Music
September
Smith's paintings exhibited
at the James Cohan Gallery
The
Heavenly Tree Grows Downward:
Selected works by Harry Smith, Philip Taaffe and Fred Tomaselli
September 10 - October
19, 2002
James Cohan Gallery
41 West 57th Street
catalogue
New York Times review
Film #18,
Mahagonny to screen at Anthology Film Archives
John Zorn to headline
two shows celebrating Smith
press
release
New York
Times review
Village
Voice Review
July
National Public Radio
celebrates the 50th Anniversary
of the Anthology of American Folk Music
www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jul/anthology/index.html
May
The Getty
Research Institute presents Harry Smith's Film #18, Mahagonny
Film
Screening, Symposium, and Patti Smith Performance
May 30th and 31st, 2002 at The Getty Center, Los Angeles
Filmmaker, anthropologist, painter, and musicologist Harry Smith worked on Film # 18, Mahagonny, his final film, for over ten years and considered it his magnum opus. His cinematic transformation of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's caustically satirical opera is an allegory that explores human needs and desires amid the rituals of daily life in New York City. The film is a collage composed from a variety of film genres, intercutting portraits of important avantgarde figures, New York City landmarks, and Smith's visionary animation.
The film, newly preserved by the Harry Smith Archives and Anthology Film Archives, will be presented along with a one-day symposium that will investigate the various paths of Smith's creative universe. Patti Smith (who appears in the film) and her band will appear in concert at the Getty Center to cap off the day's events. The symposium is part of the Getty Research Institute's 2001-2002 theme "Frames of Viewing: Experience, Perception, Judgment."
Details
and Reservation Information
Symposium Statement
film still from Mahagonny
April
The
Writing of America: Literature and Cultural Identity from the Puritans to
the Present
by Geoff Ward
This new book includes a chapter on Harry Smith: "Going Fishing: Harry Smith, the Anthology of American Folk Music, and the Fan"
January
Granta.com
"American Folk,"
by
Greil Marcus
Gadlfly
Online
"Hypnotist Collector:
The Alchemy of Harry Smith," by Darrin Daniel