Harry Smith at the Whitney Museum and in Cosmic Scholar: When Whimsy Meets Whip Smart

Back in the day, I thought Harry Smith was a deadbeat. Now, he’s a dead Beat. A filmmaker, artist, student of the occult, mysticism, cats’ cradle and paper airplane master, and famously a star of one of Andy Warhol’s interviews, Harry Smith was a cultural figure in his day, as a rich exhibition of his work, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith, at the Whitney Museum, demonstrates. Who knew?

An inhabitant of the Chelsea Hotel and the Breslin before that, he consorted with an array of artsy types, among them photographer/ filmmaker/ musician John Cohen, rocker Patti Smith, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and many others who appear in his masterpiece Mahagonny, a filmed reboot of Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill opera about a city where anything goes. Imagining New York that way in 1970, Smith filmed Allen Ginsberg, Rosebud Pettet, and many other downtown types. Viewers enjoyed it seated on sofas on the Whitney’s 5^th floor.

The Whitney had a weekend of lectures, screenings, and other tributes to Harry Smith. Anne Waldman gave a reading in tribute. Raymond Foye provided a connection to painter Jordan Belson. Some of the interviews are like home movies with semi articulate musings by Smith. Rani Singh, Director of the Harry Smith Archives, spoke about how Mahagonny was made from 1970 till 1980. And like so much experimental work of the time, the percussive poetry of Brion Gysin, Jack Kerouac’s spontaneous prose, William Burroughs’ cutups, the work is highly structured—not at all haphazard, as the art first appears.

Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music (1952) was a huge influence on Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, and many others. Thelonius Monk figures in a big way too. John Szwed’s recently published biography, Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith, richly details Smith’s work, allies, and his place among twentieth century artists.

Much to Harry Smith’s distress, Patti Smith used to say he was her father. His retort: that was impossible. He never had sex.