This is the film, Rock My Religion, that was a component of the retrospective exhibition of Dan Graham’s work that, when I saw it some years ago in Paris, provided the impetus for my poem
Patti Smith Was Right

Patti Smith was right

these cold, known objects
                            are not very likeable –
      aluminium frames
         & curved glass with optical tricks –
but I am ‘at ease’
     at this show,
there are some nice little-grin ideas –
        like television 
              screening outside
          on the suburban home’s front lawn,
& time-delay verité videos
  to amuse the usually uncrackable
                                   hardened gallery-goer

  ∇

have I flipped ?       into a strangely placid
           political zone         a lack of clutter
  and environmental concern -
these things are so simple,
                   two hours here & I begin to enjoy
                                             Dan Graham
more than Soutine, Braque, Delaunay,
     Bourgeois, Basquiat, Sherrie Levine,
         Agnes Martin -               although
I can not deny my memory 
         of her beautiful mid-1960’s picture -
                        ‘Milk River’ -
nor her small collection
             of pick-up trucks -     the green Chevie
     glinting with polish – the very driveable
  Dodge parked
outside her desert home.

  ∇

I spend over an hour watching,
    surrendering to
          Dan Graham’s big “Rock/God” video
that makes a simple
           anthropological connection 
              between US tribal & religious ritual -
 group dancing, shaking, speaking in tongues-
                                      and mosh pits and rock music -
          so when Patti Smith sings
“Jesus died for somebody’s sins
                               but not mine”
                                                   I am converted.

  ∇

Patti Smith was right,
                     twenty-five years ago,
to say that rock music,
              meaning, then, for her, punk-rock,
would replace          painting
                                           & sculpture
     as representative of untranscended
                                                    life itself.

You can find brief notes on Agnes Martin here

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