Psychedelic Art
Wednesday 14 March @ 15:53:42 |
 by LIBERTY FINCH
The San Francisco Psychedelic exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts may be less about visual art than it is about music history. The collection of photography and poster art celebrating counterculture’s utopian period is certainly arresting, but it’s the visual liner notes stenciled on the museum walls that are required reading.
 During the mid- to late-’60s, California was a musical epicenter ruled by hippies and freaks. From the laid-back singer-songwriters who gathered in L.A.’s Laurel Canyon, to the Bay Area’s definitive assortment of psychedelic bands housed in Haight-Ashbury, nearly all had roots in folk, blues and R&B. But it was the creative zeitgeist of these young artists to meld such influences into new and experimental genres of music that spoke to a generation and altered the face—and consciousness—of a nation.
In San Francisco, young people willing to experiment with free love, recreational drugs and psychedelic music literally defined their counterculture as the original era of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. During the heyday, about a dozen Bay Area bands, including Big Brother and the Holding Company (with lead singer Janis Joplin), Blue Cheer, Country Joe and the Fish, the Electric Flag, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and the Steve Miller Band ruled the music scene. For a few bucks you could catch weekly gigs at the Avalon Ballroom or Fillmore Auditorium, which might pair the Charlatans with Country Joe and the Fish, or the Grateful Dead with Quicksilver Messenger Service (the latter gig aptly dubbed “The Quick and the Dead”).
Thousands of youth patronized these shows, but thankfully we don’t have to rely on their drug-addled memories for an accurate account of the scene. Instead, we can look at the work of a dozen or so photographers and a handful of illustrators in San Francisco Psychedelic who captured the individual personalities, group dynamics and creative energy of the era in studio portraits, publicity photos, concert shots and promo posters.
Photographers Jim Marshall, Herb Greene, Bob Seidemann and Thomas Weir have distinct styles. Dubbed “the father of rock ’n’ roll photography,” Marshall documented a slew of bands in concert and behind the scenes. His work is playful yet tight, and even in staged promotional shots he captures the spirit of the musicians sincerely.
In one candid black and white photo of Big Brother and the Holding Company, Marshall aims his camera at the elevated outdoor stage and equitably frames the band. Here, the normally flamboyant Joplin is just one of the players. Sandwiched between guitarists, she straddles the mic, closes her eyes and clenches her fists in a soulful wail. She’s captivating, but so is guitarist James Gurley, who’s bent over his instrument in a mid-riff jam.
Herb Greene and Bob Seidemann both shot portraits. Greene liked to pose his subjects in soft, natural light against a signature background. Seidemann staged clean, in-studio compositions, but also took dramatic environmental portraits outdoors. Thomas Weir’s photographs are the most unusual—distorted, circular images that mirrored the drug-induced music of the time.
A few important album covers are dispersed amongst the photographs: the R. Crumb-illustrated Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and the Holding Company, Blue Cheer’s Vincebus Eruptum and Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealist Pillow are a few.
There’s also an assortment of rock posters created by Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse and Wes Wilson. Each artist had a unique style, but all used intense colors, dense imagery and unique typography to visually represent the auditory counterculture. Their passion for creating trippy, hand-drawn alphabets was a deliberate tactic to force viewers to slow down and contemplate the message.
During my trip to San Francisco Psychedelic I saw more than old hippies strolling down memory lane. There were teens, toddlers (“Daddy, is that the Grateful Dead?”) and more than a few elderly folks smiling, inspecting and puzzling over the images. Many, like me, lingered at the text, collecting psychedelic trivia.
Did you that know Blue Cheer—a trio who took their name from a potent strain of LSD—were the very first heavy metal band? They grew their hair the longest and played their music the loudest, prompting Rolling Stone to call them “a pack of Hell’s Angels with instruments.” And did you know that Steve Miller, who formed his first band at age 12, moved to Chicago and jammed with Muddy Waters before heading to San Francisco in 1966? Originally called the Miller Blues Band, he later changed the name to the Steve Miller Band. And on and on …
No matter how just the social movement, or how dope the weed, or how potent the hallucinogen, the universal truth of yin and yang says that life is balanced: so for every high there is a low, for every Woodstock there is an Altamont. Those utopian days of the psychedelic era were destined to end, and unfortunately for many musicians, the fame was fleeting—thwarted by band break-ups, drug overdoses and lackluster album releases. Nevertheless, the indelible imprint these artists made on the musical, social and political landscape still resonates today. ||
San Francisco Psychedelic runs through June 10. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is located at 2400 3rd Ave. S., Mpls., 612-870-3131. Gallery hours are Tue., Wed., Fri. & Sat. 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Thu. 10 a.m.–9 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Closed Mon.
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