Landing in New York amid the ashes of post-hippie culture, twenty-year old Patti Smith would upset all of the existing codes: cliché rock ’n’ roll, overly prosaic poetry, the perpetually elitist culture, and the restrictive idea of gender. During her fifty-year career, with only one commercial hit, she became a living legend without ever leaving the fringes of society. A punk at heart, she positions art as a political force and freedom as a necessity.

Introduction by ethonologist Aimar Ventsel.