Radical Trips Exploring the Political Dimension and Context of the 1960S Psychedelic Poster

Scott B. Montgomery Radical Trips Exploring the Political Dimension and Context of the 1960s Psychedelic Poster re We Next? Be Aware” intones the jarring poster, offering a disturbing suggestion of a parallel between the U.S. government and that of Nazi Germany (see Figure 1). Bold, powerful, and suc- “cinct—itA is iconic political poster art. Designed by Wes Wilson in mid-1965, not long after the first U.S. troops arrived in Vietnam, the poster conjoins its ominous query, or warning, with an unsettling conflation of the stars and stripes with the swastika. It was intended to provoke. With this image, we are introduced to one of the pioneers of the nascent Psychedelic Poster Movement in San Francisco. Having trained in a print shop and possessing strong political views and concerns about U.S. policy, Wilson created this poster to distribute at antiwar events. Though most famous for his concert posters, Wilson’s career began here, with artwork made for protest. His art would unite these two realms, heralding both political events and rock concerts, not unlike the band Country Joe and the Fish, who straddled the lines between radical politics and art and music, playing protest rallies, the Avalon Ballroom, and even art openings.1 The fact that Wilson’s first poster was a self-produced work of great political provocation reveals how closely tied to political concerns were many of the artists of this new psychedelic poster revolution. Journal for the Study of Radicalism, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2019, pp. 121–154. issn 1930-1189. © 2019 Michigan State University Board of Trustees. All rights reserved. 121 This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism 13, no. 1, 2019, published by Michigan State University Press. 122 Scott B. Montgomery Figure 1. Wes Wilson. Are We Next? Be Aware. 1965. Offset lithograph. This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism 13, no. 1, 2019, published by Michigan State University Press. Radical Trips 123 Wilson originally designed “Are We Next?” in red and white, without the blue field for the stars. It was simpler and more understated than the final version. The tri-color poster is bolder in its conjuring of the flag, upping the ante in terms of political commentary, as Old Glory is overtly and provocatively fused with the Nazi swastika. The query “Are We Next?” pushes it from commentary to call to arms, particularly as it was first displayed at an antiwar rally in Berkeley in the early autumn of 1965. While equally cogent in regard to the horrors witnessed in the South’s deeply rooted racism and all-too-frequently violent responses to 1964’s Freedom Summer, the most obvious point of reference here is the Vietnam War and U.S. foreign policy in Southeast Asia. Wilson’s poster asks, “Are We Next?”—a question that might be read two ways. The first and most obvious is, of course, the concern that American foreign and domestic policies had become fascistic. But, for young men, it had another chilling side: that they might be “next” in the draft selection. As the draft expanded, so too did the relevancy of the poster. Wilson credits West Coast Litho pressman Ivor Powell with the idea to add the question, making it more forceful and engaging.2 While Allen Ginsberg found it to be “too paranoid,” Chet Helms saw the poster’s power and was inspired to contact Wilson to make concert posters for the Family Dog in early 1966. Though not a deeply psychedelic design, it is the poster that launched not only Wilson’s career, but helped initiate the entire flowering of the poster movement in the San Francisco area. Given the history of the poster’s function as propaganda, it hardly surprises that such strong political statements were part of the very birth of the Psychedelic Poster Movement. As the first major figure in the San Francisco Psychedelic Poster Movement, Wes Wilson both pioneered the style and was its principal poster child in the media during its early years.3 Many central characteristics of the psychedelic poster developed significantly, though not exclusively, through Wilson’s hand. While “Are We Next? Be Aware” is not fully psychedelic, it might be seen as one of two key posters of the summer of 1965 that began the Psychedelic Poster Movement.4 The other is “The Seed,” by George Hunter and Michael Ferguson, generally regarded as the first artistically inclined rock poster.5 In these two images—one political, one recreative—we see the emerging artistic and cultural–political forces that nurtured the birth and flowering of psychedelic poster art. This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism 13, no. 1, 2019, published by Michigan State University Press. 124 Scott B. Montgomery I explore some of the radical dimensions of the psychedelic poster, through an art-historical lens, considering how both the medium and style were laden with socio-political potential and implication. Generally, when it is even considered, this material is examined through the lens of its obvious socio-political context. My goal is to begin an art-historical investigation of these images, particularly through consideration of the interface of politics and psychedelic aesthetics within the Psychedelic Poster Movement in San Francisco during the late 1960s. From 1965 onward, the psychedelic poster began to articulate cultural distinctions within the San Francisco area as designs increasingly challenged the viewer’s perceptions and thus prompted new explorations of visual and conceptual paradigms. Breaking beyond its mandate to advertise (commercially or politically), the psychedelic poster increasingly emphasized a cultural coherence that could be harnessed as a political force. With an evolving iconography of style–psychedelic flourishes increasingly expressing countercultural identity—the poster became a beacon of hip-gnosis. The interface between this style-based indicator of identity and the exigency of political galvanization led to the development of psychedelic political poster art in which psychedelic stylistic elements are used to fashion a sense of countercultural coherence around a central political issue. The poster’s history as a tool for propaganda and political agitation, combined with the strong liberal leanings of the artists and the fraught political climate of the time, gave birth to Wilson’s “Are We Next?” and other political posters. An inherent countercultural alignment against the military-industrial complex and mainstream society can be seen in Wilson’s design. This is not to say that all countercultural elements actively opposed the war. Many, such as Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey, were relatively disengaged from serious antiwar protest. But the war created a focal point around which notions of “counter” coagulated. While not all hippies were overtly political, neither were they apolitical. A “moral imperative toward altruism” and social engagement can be found in much psychedelic mysticism and communal praxis.6 Radical politics and cultural recreation coexisted, as dramatically demonstrated at the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park on 14 January 1967. The stage was shared by poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, bands such as the Grateful Dead and the Charlatans, and political figures such as Jerry Rubin. But, as Jerry Garcia mused, the “angry” political tone fell on ears more interested in music and poetry than speeches.7 The politics This work originally appeared in Journal for the Study of Radicalism 13, no. 1, 2019, published by Michigan State University Press. Radical Trips 125 of the counterculture was frequently performed in more nebulous ways. In self-identifying as “counter” (“freaks”), the so-called hippie counterculture was an inherently socio-political phenomenon, however subtly articulated it might have been. The psychedelic poster was a visual means of expressing and performing this radical alterity—a psychedelic identity. It radiated psychedelic signification and it demanded that the viewer engage in active searching for meaning. “Are We Next?” resonated with the burgeoning psychedelic “hippie” counterculture and expressed in no uncertain terms its distrust of “straight” society. Wilson and others would soon develop a new psychedelic artistic language that visually articulated this cultural divide. Wilson’s artistic colleague, Victor Moscoso, recalls a clear distinction: “So, the straight people didn’t like us. The cops were beating up the hippies. There was really two cultures in San Francisco at the time. One was what we called ‘the suits’ and the other was the psychedelic people.”8 Moscoso, Wilson, and others fashioned a style that suited this articulation of a divergence of culture. Pushing line and color to luxurious optic extremes and fashioning lettering that was challenging to read, the poster artists created artistic visions that demanded slow looking and psychedelic awareness to fully comprehend. The psychedelic aesthetic would become a cultural signifier—a visual acid test that demonstrated that one was “on the bus” and thus not on the normative cultural highway.9 Reading a poster increasingly became an adventure that visually performed psychedelic awareness and identity. In many ways, the most transformative element of the posters is that the style and its cultural signification was itself a “radical trip”—an invitation to identify with the countercultural response to the madness of the mainstream. This raises the idea of radical aesthetics as part of an inextricable link between the politics and aesthetics of the counterculture, as discussed by Julie Stephens.10 With this in mind, let us look to the interface of psychedelic posters and counterculture political agendas in the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s. Psychedelic posters gave visual focus to new ways of seeing. An inherently populist medium, the poster brought this to the street, resonating with both political flyers and commercial advertising.

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