On October 29, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center opens Jack Smith: Flaming Creatures, a cross disciplinary retrospective exhibition of the work of the revolutionary American artist, Jack Smith (1932-1989). Flaming Creatures assembles hundreds of examples of Smith’s innovative work in photography, film, performance, drawing, collage, costume design, slide projection, sound and the written word, revealing the artist as a fountainhead of the American avant-garde.

The exhibition is complemented by the first complete retrospective of Smith’s restored films, as well as selected films which Smith influenced, appeared in and took inspiration from. The film component is organized by and presented at the American Museum of the Moving Image and will be on view from November 29 — December 14.

The exhibition is accompanied by a book of Smith’s collected writings, Wait for Me at the Bottom of the Pool, published by Serpent’s Tail, London, and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, and edited by J. Hoberman and Edward Leffingwell; and by the Serpent’s Tail/P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center publication Jack Smith: Flaming Creatures, His Amazing Life and Times, a Lookout Book, edited by Edward Leffingwell, Carole Kismaric and Marvin Heiferman, with essays by Hoberman, Leffingwell, Nayland Blake, Ronald Tavel and Lawrence Rinder, with contributions by Penny Arcade, Stefan Brecht, Richard Foreman, Jonas Mekas, Susan Sontag and Jerry Tartaglia.