Free admission I mean, to the Summer of Love exhibit, the blend of late 60’s music, art, and literature that’s on display now through September 16 at the Whitney Museum. Admission is usually $15 dollars for uncoolkids but if you hit up the Whitney between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Friday nights, you’re just asked to give a donation.
The exhibit occupies the third and second floors of the museum and its suggested you begin on the third and work your way down. There we were greeted with a brief written explanation of the collection, which names San Francisco, New York, and London as the centers of the counterculture era. The first artwork on display is an array of old concert posters from the Fillmores East and West. The friend who joined me at the museum works in the music industry and is also involved in a film right now about the life of Brian Epstein, who managed the Beatles, so he was alot more knowledgable about the “Bill Graham presents” collection. Apparently these posters were given away for free at the end of the shows and now are worth some money.
The San Francisco section of the exhibit was a spectrum of colors coating political agendas, with a few key phrases thrown in for good hippie measure, like “Plant a flower child” and “Turn on, tune in”. There were pictures from protests hanging next to photos of colorful Victorian homes (some call them “painted ladies”). Also shown were Jefferson Airplane albums, multiple portraits of Jimi Hendrix, an homage to Janis Joplin, the advent issue of Rolling Stone.
It was also rich in anti-war parephernalia, beginning with the large haunting oil painting of a Vietnamese woman being raped by “white boy soldiers”, and working its way towards flower children flashing peace on rally posters. It was a fitting representation of the dichotomy of carefree appearances and underlying anxieties - a motto of peace mixed with the irony of the fervor of protest. One of the rally posters asked: “Haven’t we learned from our past mistakes?”
On the lighter side, if you’re into nudity, because who isn’t, you should spend a little extra time checking out the San Francisco displays. There are as many naked bodies in the artwork as there are dandelions. There’s even an orgy film, complete with headphones and a “Warning! Sexually Explicit Content!” placard.
The New York section focused primarily on Woodstock, with several great photos from Bethel, NY, back when the Boomers looked suspiciously…like us today. There were several Exploding Plastic Inevitable albums produced by Andy Warhol on display (the museum is also showing Warhol films in the Kaufman Astoria Studios Film and Video Gallery; check the Whitney schedule online). The literature of the era included pulp about psychedelia and guides to tripping out, as well as off-beat papers like the East Village other, the cover of which chronicled poet Allen Ginsberg’s arrest for possession of pot.
The London section featured photographs of a very young Mick Jagger with his full lips and lineless face, and his most notable leading ladies like Marianne Faithful and his ex-wife Bianca; Keith Richards with cocain drawn up to his nostril; Eric Clapton in all his red-pants, big-hair glory. We watched a video of the inflation of the massive pillow at Altamount. There was a how-to guide for swingers in England, black and white photographs from poetry readings in Hyde Park, and a cloth-covered, Epcot-center-like display, a weird little room which we could enter only after removing our shoes and which gave me a foot cramp because of the rolling surface inside (I still can’t figure out the point of that thing).
If you’re really into trippy stuff you’ll probably enjoy the strobe light displays, swirling circles and amoebas pulsating on the walls in dark rooms.
And there are several photos, portraits, and album covers of those buggy little guys who sang “All You Need is Love”.
So the exhibit shows that the summer of love was celebrated differently in different parts of the world, whether it was through sexual, spiritual, political, or artistic liberation. Some call the participants non-conformists; others laud them as visionaries. The artwork leaves you with a wealth of information, a heady feeling, and a few more curiosities about an era which we as Gen X or Y kids can’t really understand.
There are parellels though. There were musicians that lived hard and died at twenty seven, there was unabashed nakedness which has translated to a naked fear of AIDS, racial tensions are still rampant, there are still school shootings and alot of the drugs have remained the same. And the one thing we’re still digging, unfortunately, is the uncertainty and unrest festering like bacteria in the petrie dish of a seemingly senseless war. Which begs that question: ”Haven’t we learned from our past mistakes?”
If you’re at all into the music and pop culture of the late 60’s, check out this exhibit.
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Sunshine (yellow cake with vanilla buttercream) and I like the Ooey Gooey (Chocolate cake with chocolate almond buttercream) because not only is it yummy in my tummy but it’s also fun to say. Pumpkin (Pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing) seemed to be the crowd pleaser on our most recent indulgence, and we’ve noticed that the Red Velvet and Pistachio are also ordered a lot. Cupcakes are $1.50 each. We don’t like the coffee, though, which is unfortunate.
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