VISUAL TRIPS THE PSYCHEDELIC POSTER MOVEMENT IN SAN FRANCISCO VISUAL TRIPS THE PSYCHEDELIC POSTER MOVEMENT IN SAN FRANCISCO

Interpretive Text SCOTT MONTGOMERY Exhibition Overview DAN JACOBS

This exhibition overview and prospectus document was prepared in connection with an exhibition organized by the University of Denver and appearing at its Vicki Myhren Gallery, September–November, 2014. This prospectus is for information only, and for use in consideration of a possible exhibition tour. The content of the interpretive texts included in this document was prepared by Visual Trips curator, Professor Scott Montgomery of the University of Denver School of Art & Art History. No part of this document may be reproduced or distributed without express written permission from Dr. Montgomery or from the Vicki Myhren Gallery at the University of Denver.

Visitors at the Visual Trips exhibtion, Vicki Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, Fall 2014 CONTENTS

EXHIBITION OVERVIEW 6

VISUAL TRIPS: THE PSYCHEDELIC POSTER 10 MOVEMENT IN SAN FRANCISCO

THE JOINT SHOW: AN ARTISTIC MANIFESTO 12

THE POSTER AS PROPAGANDA, POLITICAL 18 AND COMMERCIAL

EXPANDING CONSCIOUSNESS AND PSYCHEDELIA 24

THE INEFFABLE AND THE ILLEGIBLE 30

ARTISTIC INFLUENCES AND STYLE 34

IMAGE AND IDENTITY 40

THE SOUND 46

THE FOURTH DIMENSION 52

LIGHTSHOWS AND THE PERFORMANCE CONTEXT 56

MAKING A LITHOGRAPHIC POSTER 58 Dan Jacobs and Kaitlin Maestas

University of Denver School of Art and Art HIstory 2121 E. Asbury Ave. Denver, CO 80210 www.myhrengallery.com

Editor: Dan Jacobs Design: Mary Junda

This document is prepared for informational purposes only and is not available for sale. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopy, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without Visual Trips installation, Vicki Myhren, University of Denver, Fall 2014 permission in writing from the copyright holders. SCHOOL OF ART & ART HISTORY EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

I was very pleased to organize and present Visual Trips: The Psychedelic Poster Movement in San Francisco at the Vicki Myhren Gallery as our major exhibition of the 2014-2015 season (October 2 through November 16, 2014). Visual Trips developed over a period of years as an exhibition concept created and curated by Scott Montgomery, a member of the art history faculty of the University of Denver’s School of Art & Art History. The exhibition combined 150 psychedelic posters from the San Francisco Bay Area and over 40 closely related items never before exhibited. These included drawings, paste-ups and transparencies used in the collaborative design and printing process--many of them surviving through the decades in the basement of a shuttered San Francisco print- shop. These special materials were invaluable in presenting the the extraordinary confluence of artists and markets (both the burgeoning music scene and the wider counter-culture of which it formed a key element) that nurtured what Dr. Montgomery has termed a movement in the art historical sense.

Our “Visual Trip” pun is very much in keeping with the playful spirit of nearly every poster included in this exhibition; the journey or “trip” was truly a central idea during the late ‘60s counterculture that had San Francisco as one of its most important hubs. Dr. Scott Montgomery, our guest curator, infused Visual Trips with this same spirit, making the project a real pleasure. A native Californian, a musician and an aficionado of the Bay Area scene of the 1960s, he really knows something about psychedelic culture. He also brings an art historian’s approach (he is an Associate Professor of Art History and a medieval specialist here at the School of Art & Art History).

I’ve long been interested in working with Scott to reinterpret the material on view here. Especially significant is his developing concept of a Psychedelic Poster Movement, which he articulates as a number of artists sharing a coherent philosophy of art-making. Seen in this light, psychedelic posters are more than simply illustrations of a turbulent and exciting time and place; they represent the conscious creation of a focused and highly productive group of artists. Visual Trips installation, Vicki Myhren, University of Denver, Fall 2014

6 7 PROJECT STAFF: STUDENTS AND RECENT GRADUATES

Kristin Brown Publications Assistant (M.A. ‘16 – anticipated)

Nessa Kerr Assistant to the Director (M.A. ‘15)

Sabena Kull Collections Manager, University Art Collections (M.A. ‘15)

Kelly Flemister Lighting and Lighting Effects, Former Graduate Gallery Assistant (M.A. ‘15 – anticipated)

Kaitlin Maestas Senior Graduate As presented in Visual Trips, their collaborations and Gallery Assistant (M.A. ‘15 – anticipated) shared methods help to unify what can appear to be confusingly diverse visual styles. The texts appearing Lauren Greenwell Graduate Gallery Assistant throughout the exhibition, unless otherwise noted, are (M.A. ‘16 – anticipated) Scott’s contributions. Kate Woestemeyer Collections and research assistant (B.A. ‘14) I am now pleased to present a print version of the Natalie Metzger Former interpretive texts for the exhibition, along with a sampling Collections Assistant (M.A. ‘13) of the posters and other materials included in Visual Janna Keegan Former Collections Trips, as a prospectus of a possible traveling version of Assistant (M.A. ‘14) Visual Trips. Dr. Montgomery is currently preparing a book-length expansion of the Visual Trips concept. While Moira Heffernan Former Collections Assistant Visual Trips was installed in just over 2100 square feet at (M.A. ‘15 – anticipated) the Vicki Myhren Gallery, a number of installation photos Matthew Swisher Student poster demonstrate that it was densely packed with material; design (BFA ‘15) the exhibition could easily fill a space twice the size. In addition, the nature of the interpretive approach and of the material allows for easy addition and substitution PROJECT CONSULTANTS of materials. We look forward to discussing additional Mary Junda Graphic design presentation of Visual Trips in other venues, and can Tom Ward iWave Media, Exhibit present a complete checklist of all exhibition materials. I fabrication look forward to receiving your inquiries directly!

Dan Jacobs Director, Vicki Myhren Gallery

Above: Exhibition Curator Scott Montgomery, PhD leads a gallery tour

Facing: Visual Trips installation, Vicki Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, Fall 2014

8 9 VISUAL TRIPS THE PSYCHEDELIC POSTER MOVEMENT IN SAN FRANCISCO

The counterculture that flowered in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s not only had a look, but a way of looking—both of them psychedelic. The psychedelic vision emerged among a group of artists expressing ideas of mutability, organic morphing, optical puzzles, imaginative exploration and a playful questioning of reality. In the visual arts these ideas were best developed in the psychedelic poster—an art charged with bold color, mellifluous line, and surreal imagery.

The poster was central in formulating and propagating a look that expressed the values of the emerging counterculture. Psychedelia was a way of seeing and experiencing the world in new and unexpected ways and therefore it had an inherently political element.

What do these posters say? What do they mean? Letters and words emerge and slip away again. Forms reconfigure as if to undermine themselves. Legibility is often sacrificed in order to enable visual play and exploration. These posters conduct us on a visual trip to the dawning of a new visual experience. In referring to a Psychedelic Poster Movement, we point to the intentional creation of this style by a small group of skillful artists who developed and

promoted the psychedelic poster as a visual art form. 4

10 11 THE JOINT SHOW: AN ARTISTIC MANIFESTO

Several psychedelic artists demonstrated their stylistic and cultural unity early on, especially in the Joint Show, which opened July 17, 1967 at the Moore Gallery in San Francisco. Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley and Victor Moscoso displayed their explorations of psychedelic possibilities as more than a reflection of the psychedelic counterculture—they went further, defining themselves as founders of psychedelic art. Each of the five created his own poster promoting the exhibition [1-5, pgs 14-15]. While the show omitted Bonnie MacLean (a key artist already active in the movement), other important artists such as Lee Conklin and David Singer hadn’t yet begun to publish psychedelic work. We include a poster designed by MacLean around the time of the Joint Show in order to address the historic omission of her work in most discussions [6, facing].

Their collective display was a statement of cultural and aesthetic accord—a manifesto. This was not the art world going psychedelic, but the psychedelic world going “high art.” While validating and celebrating a new artistic and countercultural movement, the Joint Show presented itself as a bona fide art event. 6

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Bringing the art of the poster to widespread attention, such as Lee Conklin and David Singer hadn’t yet begun The Joint Show was the most visible early exhibition the new offices of advertising firm J.Walter Thompson the September 1, 1967 issue of LIFE Magazine featured to publish psychedelic work. dedicated to the evolving psychedelic poster movement [9]. The show opened on Tuesday May 23, 1967, two a cover story on “The Great Poster Wave” [7]. Illustrated in the area, but it wasn’t the first. Wilson’s design for the months before the Joint Show. prominently were works of the major American The Joint Show used the ritual and material culture of Rock & Roll Poster Exhibition held at the San Francisco Art poster artists of the moment, with Wes Wilson, Victor formal art exhibitions, including an official opening Institute Gallery from November 2-28, 1966 documents Soon after the Joint Show, a Victor Moscoso design Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley, Rick Griffin and and an invitation designed by Wes Wilson. Wilson’s an early claim for the artistic legitimacy of these posters [4, p 11] advertises a “Touring Poster Show” (The Neon Bonnie MacLean underscoring the preeminence of design effectively sets the psychedelic tone of the event [8, facing]. The title of the exhibit underscores the Rose series) beginning October 22, 1967 at North Park San Francisco; Gary Grimshaw exemplifying the smaller through strident contrasting colors, organic linear importance of rock music as the galvanizing force Neiman Marcus Exhibition Hall, Dallas. The Neon Rose but vibrant Detroit scene; and Peter Max representing sensibility, patterns morphing into faces, and lettering behind much of this artistic production, while hinting series is a unified body of work—conceived, named, Several psychedelic artists demonstrated their stylistic subverted by mirror-imaging. Part of a lavish invitation at the importance of the business of rock in poster and presented as revolving around the artist and and cultural unity early on, especially in the Joint Show, package that included nine folded “bio” pages and a patronage: the dance-concert event predicated the not a concert event, promoter or venue. The Neon which opened July 17, 1967 at the Moore Gallery in San number of postcards of rock posters designed by each creation of the poster. Rose series is itself a psychedelic poster manifesto. Francisco. Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Alton of the Joint Show artists, Wilson’s invite was delivered in For Texans hungry for the latest from the Bay Area, Kelley and Victor Moscoso displayed their explorations a package shaped like a large Zig-Zag rolling paper box. By the end of 1966, posters themselves were beginning Moscoso’s touring show, including his groundbreaking of psychedelic possibilities as more than a reflection Each of the five artists produced posters for the exhibit. to stand on their own as works of art. Additional “four-dimensional” animated posters, brought a of the psychedelic counterculture—they went further, More than just stand-alone posters, they formed a exhibitions were held in 1967, as evidenced by Wilson’s moveable feast of stunning new design. defining themselves as founders of psychedelic art. collectible set, furthering developing the collective (and poster for a “continuing exhibit of contemporary art” at While the show omitted Bonnie MacLean (a key artist somewhat exclusive) identity for the group. already active in the movement), other important artists

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16 17 THE POSTER AS PROPAGANDA, POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL

Wes Wilson’s earliest poster design (1964) warns “Are We Next? Be Aware.” His original design in red and white is relatively understated. The final tri-color version ups the political ante, provocatively fusing Old Glory with the swastika. The text is clearly an anti-war call to action. In contrast to the polemical “Are We Next?,” Bonnie MacLean’s poster heralding the arrival of 1968 brandishes a peace symbol as a positive talisman. While Wilson offers a harsh critique of the military-industrial complex, MacLean celebrates a self-defining counterculture. Both use clean, short-hand symbolic rhetoric, elegantly reflecting the wider setting for an evolving counterculture. As this counterculture psychedelicized (partly through the expanding use of drugs), the psychedelic poster helped lead the way, developing a visual language increasingly laden with anti-war cultural and political identity.

Adamantly political, the San Francisco Mime Troupe was at the forefront of 1960s counterculture in the San Francisco area; the company also became intimately involved with the eruption of poster art in the region. Updating commedia dell’arte to address contemporary concerns such as the escalating Vietnam War, the Troupe was radical theater. Their performances of “A Minstrel Show or Civil Rights in a Cracker Barrel” were called “indecent, obscene, and offensive” by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission and banned, leading to an uproar over censorship and arrests. Benefit events were organized to raise money for the Troupe’s legal bills. In 1965 a recent transplant from New York, , became the company business manager. Graham soon recognized the potential of organizing cultural events (with music) and used posters to advertise them.

The poster was already a political tool and an advertising staple in the Bay Area. Partly through Graham’s influence and his growing role in the music scene, it would soon become the prime vehicle for psychedelic art. 5

18 19 THE POSTER AS PROPAGANDA, POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL continued

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On the eve of Valentine’s Day 1967, 18-year old to be another culture…another world. As Holbrook Printed in large quantities on commercial lithographic the most common type of commission, any number Leland E. Holbrook, Jr. was sent a frightening piece arrived for his 4:00 a.m. military induction appointment presses, the poster was a perfect tool for a populist of commercial endeavors turned to the burgeoning of mail—a letter from the Selective Service ordering in Tennessee, wild-eyed San Franciscans were still movement opposing the war and the draft. The poster poster renaissance. Wes Wilson’s poster for the him to report for induction into the U.S. Army, and wandering home after a concert by The Chambers made by Gut (Allen “Gut” Turk) for a Conference on the grand opening of The Red Hat tavern in Palo Alto on most likely deployment in Vietnam. The first U.S. Brothers at . Victor Moscoso’s poster for the Draft held on May 27, 1967 [4] underscores the strong September 24, 1966 fuses a linear style reminiscent ground troops arrived in Vietnam in March 1965, but event [1] was conceived with a slightly different sort political element within poster production. Advising of nineteenth-century woodcut illustrations with an when President Lyndon B. Johnson announced an of induction ceremony in mind—one involving loud “your responsibilities and legal alternatives” regarding ever-so-slight morphic drip on the coat and lettering increase in troop deployment on February 11, 1966, music, bright colors, and mind-expansion. Advertising the draft, it illustrates the application of more [6, p 22]. Wilson’s visual allusion to a vintage pub the rapid and consistent escalation of U.S. military concerts for the Family Dog a week earlier and later, traditional design elements to the counter-cultural environment, wed to the subtle dynamism of the presence took off; by the end of 1967 it had reached two other Moscoso designs [2, 3, pgs 20-21] possess cause. Similarly, Coralie’s Art Nouveau-inspired poster’s linear emphasis and lettering, provides The nearly 500,000 troops. a striking coloristic intensity and linear pulse, but it “Anti Draft Benefit” poster [5, p 19], while not overtly Red Hat with the perfect balance of traditional and is not immediately apparent what they advertise. psychedelic, draws together artistic influences, political hip, offering “Nincomfoolery,” food, libations and “a Holbrook’s letter requires that he report to the local Understanding the poster—its words, imagery, and engagement, and music in the larger context. “terrific panorama.” The general trend toward a more induction center on March 29, 1967. This sobering cultural associations—becomes something of a Ballet, Bail Bonds, Levi’s, the Sierra Club… the animated sense of line, lettering and space can be appointment contrasts markedly with events occurring countercultural induction. If you “get it,” you are psychedelic poster was soon conscripted to serve all seen even at The Red Hat down the Peninsula in Palo several hundred miles to the west… in what seems “on the bus.” forms of advertising. While concert promotion was Alto, a secondary hub of the psychedelic movement.

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In translating the style and imagery of psychedelia and on this issue, opposing a “mainstream America” they Bob Schnepf, in his design announcing the Pacific the counterculture beyond the rock concert, artists held responsible for the destruction of the natural Ballet Co. and Mark Wilde Ballet Co. joint Gala designed a visual language capable of expressing environment and indigenous cultures. The direct Spring Season at San Francisco’s Veterans Memorial cultural identity. Mouse Studio’s poster for Jerry Barish interface between commercial and countercultural Auditorium (May, 1967) [10], adds a unique element: Bail Bonds exhorts us to “Love Thy Neighbor,” [7] design is revealed in two 1966 posters by Wilson. featuring a photo of a pas-de-deux in negative, the presumably by paying Mr. Barish to bail us out of jail. One advertises the “Independence Ball”—a three-day poster is printed on both sides—for posting in a With the flower-laden “Love” as the most prominent lead-in to July 4 with a bevy of bands at window. The color scheme pivots too, from green- word, the company is verbally and visually identifying Auditorium [9, facing]. The other is a contemporary on-pink to white-on-red. There is a psychedelic itself with the counterculture. The Sierra Club’s poster for Balley Lo Fashions in San Francisco. Wilson conflation of forms, bold colors, and visual Wilderness Conference, held at the San Francisco applies the emerging style to both, with the fashion movement. The border is a mellifluous linear plane Hilton Hotel on April 7-9, 1967 is heralded by Mouse poster particularly showing off even more elaborate of delicately undulating banners and organic tendril and Kelley’s poster design [8, facing]. The wilderness epigraphy (lettering style), further psychedelicizing it forms, culled from the garden of Art Nouveau. Even movement, the Native American Movement, and the with the addition of a more eye-popping background the ballet was stepping out and tripping out. “back to nature” ethos of the counterculture all aligned motif derived from Art Nouveau.

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22 23 EXPANDING CONSCIOUSNESS AND PSYCHEDELIA

FPO

“Expand Your Conscious Mind,” the poster suggests, advertising a lecture by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on November 8, 1966 at the University of California Berkeley. The quest for “fascinating and illuminating expansion of the mind to the source of thought” was pursued through a variety of means both spiritual and chemical. Greater understanding and “higher seeing” were sought through meditation, yoga, amalgamations of Buddhist and Hindu practice, marijuana, and LSD. This trip was not only one of personal discovery, but also a larger countercultural journey toward self-identification and rejection of the constricted “old ways” that had brought about the Vietnam War and the draft. Higher consciousness would elevate us above hate and war, ushering in a New Age of peace and harmony.

Psychedelic posters frequently offer a visual experience that parallels the overwhelming sensory barrage of psychedelic drugs and are often treated as illustrations of that experience. But the posters do not merely reflect the LSD experience. Some psychedelic art evolved before the introduction of the artists to psychotropic drugs. For example, Lee Conklin’s earliest posters—often cited as some of the most LSD-influenced designs— were produced prior to his first acid trip. The psychedelic style evolved inparallel to the psychedelic drug experience. Psychedelia was part of a multi-faceted exploration of new dimensions in thought and social ideals. Its aesthetic of ineffability and morphing forms was very much the product of this wider quest for expanding consciousness. Looking had become a trip—not only an acid trip, but a journey beyond boundaries and expectations. 4

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Wes Wilson’s 1967 Allan Ginsberg poster [1, facing] “Can You Pass the Acid Test?” asks Norman Hartweg’s exhorts us to “Be Kind To” to a spectrum of humanity, appropriately chaotic flyer for a 1965 Muir Beach, San the likes of which might be found in San Francisco at “A Francisco event [3]. A psychedelic litmus test is offered Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be In” convened for those wishing to endeavor “intrepid trips” at the very January 14, 1967 in Golden Gate Park. With its third- dawning of the countercultural experiment, involving eyed yogi and mystic pyramid, Mouse/Kelley/Michael Ginsberg, the , and the unbridled Bowen’s poster for that event assures that the Be- mayhem of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. The In will be suitably spiritual, elevated, and exotic [2]. query is restated the following year in Wes Wilson’s The gathering itself was cultural and musical/artistic, Op-Art flyer, noting that among the things to expect is but it was also a profoundly political manifestation “The Unexpectable”—the very heart of the spontaneous of countercultural unity and identity. This quasi- psychedelic ethos celebrated by the emerging San spontaneous cultural assemblage was a utopian Francisco counterculture [4, p 25]. Embraced by the vision of the counterculture’s values—a free, open likes of Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary for its spiritual event with poets, music, and speakers including potential, LSD enjoyed wide recreational use within the 1 Ginsberg and acid guru Timothy Leary. counterculture, especially in early manifestations on

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the West Coast. After being given experimental doses by the U.S. government, Ken Kesey publicly celebrated the wilder, unbridled, chaotic, and playful elements of psychedelia. The San Francisco psychedelic celebration was decidedly more Dionysian than Leary’s Apollonian approach on the East Coast.

“When in the flow of human events, it becomes necessary for the people to cease to recognize the obsolete social patterns which have isolated man from his consciousness…” intones a flyer protesting California’s criminalization of LSD on October 6, 1966 [5]. Psychedelics were intertwined with the exploration of consciousness, social identity, and political action. Now illegal LSD, and by extension the psychedelic experience, acquired a political dimension in addition to its central recreational and conceptual place in countercultural identity. Psychedelic ineffability became a marker of cultural identity and even protest. The psychedelic poster speaks the language of psychedelia, visually posing ’s question “Are you experienced?” Even without reading the poster, one “gets it” or not. The words are almost extrinsic to the broader cultural message of psychedelic identity inscribed in style and imagery.

A “poster jam” from the hands of Mouse, Kelley, and Griffin invites us to “Trip or Freak” at the Fantasmagora Ball on October 31, 1967 [6, facing]. Appropriating a photo of Lon Chaney as Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, the poster bears a suitable color-scheme in acidic orange and bold black. The minute replication of Erik’s face as the background specifically conjures acid blotter paper with its distinct repeat-pattern design—one for every dose. The freaky monster element is situated 5 within a different freak-out context of LSD— intense, edgy, and in-your-face. The poster invites a trip—or lots of them—on a wild Halloween night in San Francisco.

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What is it? A hallmark of psychedelia is its unwillingness to remain fixed, static, or clear. Embracing changing perceptions and fluid meanings, psychedelic art revels in morphic, shape-shifting, mutating forms that simultaneously define and undermine one another. An aesthetic of the ineffable (the inexpressible or indefinable) pervades psychedelic art.

What does it say? Posters advertise, and are typically driven by the need to deliver legible text and lettering, but psychedelic posters diverge from the usual in this regard. Just as psychedelic imagery celebrates fluidity, play, and confusion (often illustrating “unknowable” or ambiguous forms), psychedelic lettering offers yet another opportunity to exceed the boundaries of legibility. The psychedelic poster was always intended to make one stop and look for a while, but one of its most confrontational tactics was to require hard work to decipher the lettering. 5

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Faces and figures beat in and out of focus and In accord with the dictum of ongoing experimentation, After Conklin had pushed so far into the realm structurally intertwine with one another in Wes the undulating, pliant lettering of Art Nouveau was of psychedelic illegibility, Bill Graham reigned it Wilson’s March, 1967 poster for Otis Rush at the pushed and mutated to great effect by Wes Wilson. all in and commissioned David Singer to bring Fillmore [1] and Mari Tepper’s May 1968 poster The flaming lettering on Wilson’s poster of July, 1966 back a degree of clarity, and thus a wider-market for Moby Grape [2]. With his ever-morphic, fluidly [4, facing] suggests an association with the heat of the advertising potential. Impressively, Singer was able intertwined forms, Lee Conklin takes the hallucinatory performance. With lettering that says more than words, to design a number of novel, playful, and visually vision to a high point. Figures and letters, formed, the psychedelic poster now makes the text serve the interesting fonts, such as the avian letters in his deformed and reformed by a riot of hands, challenge visual message. Whimsical, almost pictorial lettering September 24–27/October 1–4 for the Fillmore logic and reality. As one “Acid Test” flyer advises, one characterizes many posters by Wilson, Moscoso, West (see “Artistic Influences”) to ring in the New should expect “the unexpectable.” Yet much of the Griffin, and Conklin in particular. In November, 1968, Year of 1971. Lettering itself took a trip from 1965- art was driven by whimsy. Ebullient, mirthful wordplay Lee Conklin visually throws down the gauntlet. If you 1971, gradually feeling the effects of psychedelia, abounds, such as in Conklin’s “Handsome Lady” [3]. can read the text (“Ten Years After/Sun Ra/Country becoming more elaborate, confounding and One need only look back to the 1967 Joint Show for a Weather”), you’ve passed a sort of visual-linguistic acid experimental in the intensity of its peak (1967-69), reminder that, while serious, the Psychedelic Poster test [5, p 31]. and “coming down” by the early ‘70s. Movement was also seriously playful. It defined culture, but that cultural identity was inextricably tied to psychedelic play and ineffability.

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32 33 ARTISTIC INFLUENCES AND STYLE

Like the counterculture, with its voracious embrace of diverse influences, the psychedelic poster drew from a wide range of sources. While the strongest stylistic influences were clearly Art Nouveau and Op Art, anything and everything was fair game—from high brow to low brow, pop culture to Pop Art, political figures, the sublime to the ridiculous, and all points between.

With an omnivorous approach to imagery and style, the psychedelic poster movement is almost defined by variability and eclecticism. However, certain common traits appear, particularly in the uses of color, line and fanciful epigraphy (letter-forms). The most successful poster designs blend powerful sensibilities of line and color into bold, dynamic, and ever- shifting images. Overall, the movement is marked by an approach that is perhaps best summed up as “play”—creating an engaging, visual playground that invites one to slow down, look, and savor the visual adventure. 3

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Art Nouveau and Organic Line (Jugendstil is the German term for Art Nouveau). The Op Art, Pattern and Color The most profound, widespread, and apparent exhibit introduced a powerful dose of the imagery, It was natural that psychedelic artists also turned to Op Art, source of inspiration for the psychedelic poster artists motifs, and linear sensibility of Art Nouveau to the Bay exploiting its innovations with dazzling pattern and brilliant colors. is Art Nouveau, an artistic style that enjoyed great Area at the dawning of the psychedelic poster era. Bonnie MacLean’s black and white patterning in a poster for the international popularity in the two decades starting Chambers Brothers at the Fillmore (January, 1967) [4] reveals the around 1890. Its undulating, organic, sensuous, linear Direct Jugendstil influence is evident in a Wilson poster strong influence of Op Art leaders Victor Vasarely and Bridget aesthetic appealed to the Bay Area artists, echoing featuring an eye-like pattern [1] that closely resembles Riley. Meanwhile Victor Moscoso, having studied with master the counterculture’s embrace of heightened sensual that in a 1902 poster by Alfred Roller shown in the colorist Joseph Albers at Yale, was especially aware of current experience. It also happened to reflect a continuing Berkeley exhibition. The elegance and dynamism of experiments with the dynamics of color cognition. Moscoso and fascination with San Francisco’s Victorian past—a Art Nouveau are especially evident in much of Wilson’s his poster colleagues set out to invert every rule they learned past largely destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and work. Further examples of the graceful line inspired about “good design” and in doing so create great psychedelic fire but never forgotten by the city. Artists had ready by Art Nouveau are numerous in the work of other design. Ignoring or inverting rules for the “harmonious” access to the poster’s Art Nouveau “golden age” artists; two examples here include Mouse and Kelley’s arrangement of color, Moscoso looked to achieve a maximum through the exhibition Jugendstil and Expressionism in Grateful Dead poster for the Family Dog (January ’67) visual pop and pulse. His April 1967 poster headlining German Posters, held at the Berkeley Gallery, University [2] and Bonnie MacLean’s July, 1967 poster for The [5] combines a spiral vortex, intensely contrasting colors, and a of California, Berkeley November–December, 1965 Doors at the Fillmore [3, p 35]. subtle photographic overlay, pushing towards an optical overload.

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The advertising poster medium lends itself to a limited The high-brow history of art was no safer from number of bold colors, and the psychedelic movement the ministrations of the poster artists, who freely simply took this to its coloristic extreme. Color delivers psychedelicized iconic artworks, coercing them into much of the optical power of psychedelic art, whether a new cultural jam with oblique or nebulous meaning. it’s through the color intensity of Moscoso’s Junior Wells For his poster heralding the Family Dog’s “Neptune’s Matrix poster (December 1966-January 1967) [6], or Notion” dance [10, facing], Moscoso took Jean-Auguste- the warm harmonies of Kelley’s poster for Canned Heat Dominique Ingres’ 1811 painting Jupiter and Thetis, and Allmen Joy (Denver version illustrated: October inserted a large and rather friendly fish into the mix, 1967) [7]. and coloristically hopped everything up with intense, acidic orange, pink, and blue. The long history of art is Pop Art, Art History and the Omnivorous Eye acknowledged while whimsically given a psychedelic Following the populist—sometimes anarchic—Pop update. Art fascination with popular imagery, Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley collaborated to place Mad Magazine’s Those artists who excelled in appropriation and collage, poster-child Alfred E. Newman between a mushroom notably Alton Kelley and David Singer, referenced and a mushroom cloud; the “What me, Worry?” historic artworks to powerful effect. Barely a month character is squeezed between psychedelics and after Apollo 11 placed humans on the moon for the first war [8, facing]. Similarly, mainstream funny pages are time in July, 1969, Singer doubled Michelangelo’s David psychedelicized by Griffin and Mouse [9, facing], with and flew him to the moon, taking the history of art into an incoherent storyline, illegible text, and a tripped-out outer space. Topical in its response to contemporary Mickey Mouse blissing his way down the road on a trip events, playful with its art historical sources, and subtly to some lysergic magic kingdom. infused with countercultural identity, this moon-shot echoes the movement’s artistic aspirations to take art above-and-beyond.

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38 39 IMAGE AND IDENTITY

In style and imagery, the psychedelic poster was closely linked to the evolution of visual identity within the counterculture. While the image sources are diverse, certain themes do emerge as especially popular and meaningful. Some of these, such as developing band images and countercultural self-definition, address issues of identity.

Meanwhile, the uses of the female nude reveal the continuation of old themes and attitudes in the history of art. Reference to the exotic, the weird, and even monstrous could be simultaneously whimsical and laden with countercultural “freak” self-identification. Old West and Victorian San Francisco themes inspired costume play on the streets, at the dance concerts and in the posters.

Tribal Identity As seen in Mouse’s 1967 Sierra Club Wilderness A “tribal” identity, superficially modeled on a Conference poster, the counterculture looked to composite of First Peoples, was further signaled by Native American peoples as kindred spirits, finding costume and décor, often connected with tribal- resonance in the idea of mutual opposition to an themed gatherings such as the first Family Dog event oppressive, dominant mainstream culture. In another (February 19, 1966), which was styled a “Tribal Stomp.” rose-tinted envisioning of a “new old west,” Mouse An even more influential example was the January 14, and Kelley (1966) repurposed Edward S. Curtis’ 1926 1967 event in Golden Gate park, advertised as: “Pow- photograph of Blackfoot Chief and has him look Wow. A Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be-In.” toward “The Great Society” [1, facing]. 1

40 41 IMAGE AND IDENTITY continued

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The Wild West Some of the most potent elements of visual and cultural identity in psychedelic posters could be termed the idea of the “New Psychedelic Wild West,” discernable as far back as George Hunter’s poster for The Charlatans’ June, 1965 residency at the Red Dog Saloon (see “The Sound”). Kelley’s 6 “Wanted” poster for the Charlatan’s fashions the band as a group of outlaws, an image reiterated in a triptych [2, 3, 4], with Herb Greene’s “vintage” band photo stretched over the three posters. References to the region’s history were conscripted to serve a countercultural self-image in the local San Francisco context. In one poster, Rick Griffin [5] suggests multiple meanings of “Gold Rush”—both pioneer and pot—while another [6] has a prospector panning for gold at the corner of Sutter and Van Ness—the location of the . While it humorously recreates the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, the poster obliquely suggests that the real find might be “Acapulco gold.”

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42 43 IMAGE AND IDENTITY continued

The Male Gaze of associating the female form with dangerous sensual A common theme, particularly in the earlier posters, allure is puckishly alluded to in Wilson’s use of Eve and is the sensual female nude—a very old theme in the serpent for the Family Dog’s “Sin Dance” [8]. While the history of art. Much of this came directly from consciously whimsical in this instance, the image reveals the sensuous imagery found in Art Nouveau. As early how ingrained were the connections between the as September, 1966, Wes Wilson began to include female form, the physical senses, and the voyeuristic voluptuous female nudes in a number of his posters. gaze, even within the counterculture. In works by In an April, 1967 poster the woman clearly offers herself Moscoso too [9, facing] the female form was very much up to the viewer’s erotic gaze [7]. These images present treated as an object to be viewed and enjoyed. For a a particularly male view of the “sexual revolution” and full frontal male nude in the Fillmore series, one must should give pause to consider how the sexual politics wait until David Singer lands two marble Davids on the of the counterculture largely echoed those of “straight moon in August 1969—not a particularly erotic vision! America” against which it defined itself. The long history

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44 45 THE SOUND

In 1965 The Beatles released Rubber Soul, heralding a more sophisticated and aspirational phase of rock music in both sound and look. Rock and roll began to experiment with new global influences and mutate its older rhythm-and-blues base, while embracing non-traditional instruments, new tonalities, longer compositions, and a more thoughtful, complex, lavish visual identity. Rock entered its wild and exploratory adolescence. Meanwhile, in the greater San Francisco area, a free-form, expansive, improvisational mutation was emerging as the unbridled soundtrack to bacchanalia and political demonstrations alike.

A major context for the flourishing of the psychedelic poster in the San Francisco area was the thriving live music scene, frequently headlining Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, , or Big Brother and the Holding Company. With its experimental wanderings, bold coloratura, sonic intensity, and spontaneity, fit the psychedelic aesthetic.

The posters are not the visual equivalent of “She Loves You,” but more like a twenty-minute journey through the long, strange trip of “Dark Star.” Free-flowing exploration, openness to both old and new forms, and an expansion beyond traditional boundaries mark both the music and the poster art of psychedelic San Francisco.

46 47 THE SOUND Continued

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The Beatles’ final official concert performance at with Great Society) in the Fillmore poster [2], along San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966 with slightly more organic and vivacious lettering. But represents a transition in rock: a passing of the baton in its undulating, linear will-to-form can be found seeds from London to San Francisco, from British Invasion to that would soon blossom in psychedelic art. West Coast pioneers. The previous weekend witnessed the Thirteenth-Floor Elevators, Sopwith Camel, and the Less than a week after The Beatles’ final Great Society at the Fillmore Auditorium. Wes Wilson concert, the Charlatans performed a “Dance designed posters for both of these events. His Beatles & Magic Lantern Show” in Napa on September 3, poster [1] looks somewhat like a circus flyer in its bold 1966 [3, facing]. Its poster is an example of the rather primary colors—giving a more “mod” look to what is uninspired, traditional “boxing style” informational essentially a traditional poster like those promoting poster that was still common. Though relatively naïve sporting events and early rock and roll shows. A band in style, George Hunter’s The Seed design for The promo photo has been colored in against a patterned Charlatan’s June 1-15, 1965 residency at the Red Dog background, with an Anglo-American flag yin-yang Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada is generally considered as the only new element. Wilson is also relatively the first noteworthy attempt at a more “artistic” rock conventional in his use of a photo of Grace Slick (then poster [4, facing]. 4

48 49 THE SOUND Continued

Just over a year later, Wilson’s Thirteenth-Floor Elevators poster shows both refinement and experimentation in lettering and line. His dramatic development of the style can be seen in his design for the Byrds’ Spring 1967 flight into San Francisco [5]. Wilson’s poster is the epitome of graceful San Francisco psychedelic Art Nouveau. Its fluid, chiastic (“X”-form) composition weaves the rich linear potency of the black and white birds with the coloristic pop of the dynamic lettering into one of the movement’s “classic” works—an apex of psychedelic elegance and movement.

David Singer’s poster [6] announcing the closing week of the (June 30 - July 4, 1971) provides a swan song for the psychedelic evolution of the rock poster. Despite its playfully surreal photo collage and exquisite smoke-like lettering, the poster has shifted back toward clarity in its delivery of the basic information advertizing the concerts. This elegant poster offers a fitting elegy for a Psychedelic Poster Movement that first took the rock poster to the level of art.

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Some bands’ visual identity sprang largely from the figure became a quintessential icon of the Grateful posters advertising their concerts. None more so than Dead phenomenon, ultimately gracing the cover of the Grateful Dead, with imagery provided mainly by their so-called Skull and Roses album (1971). Equally Mouse and Kelley, by and large featuring decorative emblematic, Lee Conklin’s lion-woman [8] dominated and vaguely “occult” images used not only for posters, the cover of the first Santana album and defined the but also for album covers and in publications of the band’s primary visual identity—an icon of what the Grateful Dead Fan Club. Their “skull and roses” poster band “looked” like. And, like the Dead’s skull and roses [7] introduced the theme (appropriated by Kelley from motif, it evoked the idea of a cult ritual dedicated to Edmund Joseph Sullivan’s illustration for a 1913 edition mysterious, exotic, romanticized pre-modernity. The 6 of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám). The skull and roses rock concert was that ritual.

50 51 THE FOURTH DIMENSION

Posters are supposed to be stationary, but part of the psychedelic ethos is to ignore boundaries and “impossibilities.” If humans were engaging in metaphorical and literal quests for the “fifth dimension,” why couldn’t posters reach at least the fourth dimension—Time? Psychedelic posters slowed one down, but a “time performing” poster was also called for.

Victor Moscoso took this idea the furthest, devising posters that animate, appearing to move under special lighting. The poster transcends its two-dimensional “posterness.” Moscoso embraced the challenge of time, producing a total of eight “four-dimensional” posters and a related album cover and gatefold. As with the nickelodeon, the two-color lighting scheme for Moscoso’s posters creates a state of perpetual animation as the action repeats continuously, back and forth. Time is not linear here, but emulates a ritualized or meditative repetition. Ultimately, the posters become about time as much as about anything else, particularly since the text may be difficult to read under shifting lights. Moscoso notes, “You get the dimension of

time… and it enters the realm of poetry and music. 6

52 53 THE FOURTH DIMENSION continued

It was in the process of making a poster for The Doors Moscoso’s next 4D posters are the rather tame: one and The Sparrow (soon to become Steppenwolf) at the for the Youngbloods at the Avalon on June 15-18, 1967 Avalon Ballroom on May 12-13, 1967 [1, facing] that [2] and the Joint Show poster [6, p 13] printed June 30, Moscoso inadvertently made his first four-dimensional 1967. Moscoso experimented with both tri-color and poster. As an experiment, he intentionally printed the two-color variations, but it was the tri-color (red, yellow image off-register. The photo “comes from Edison. and blue) that best suited the four dimensional effect. I was looking through a book on silent films. I saw a Taking his cue from Hesseman’s flashing Christmas tree kinetoscope with a 35mm film loop inside—the loop lights, Moscoso devised a special color-wheel light to was shot by Edison and it was a lady named Annabel allow the posters to be seen “in motion.” The final four dancing with wings. I got one frame with the wings up, [3 - 6, pgs 53 - 55)]—arguably the most successful of and I wanted to echo the movement by printing the the 4D posters—are grouped in the Neon Rose series colors off-register.” Already interested in exploring with his Joint Show poster as a memorable statement of the suggestion of movement, Moscoso had no idea his signature style. that the right lighting would translate a suggestion of wings moving into a full-fledged perception of them A prime example of Moscoso’s 4-D work, designed flapping in time—the fourth dimension. The 4D aspect for the touring show of The San Francisco Poster 1966- was originally a mistake. A friend of mine—Howard 1968 (Moscoso’s The Neon Rose series) [5], heralds Hesseman—had a hallway covered with dance-concert a poetry reading with lips that open to reveal the posters, lit with Christmas tree lights. The red, blue “incredible” nature of the event. On another [6, p. 53], and green were strong. The yellow was too weak. And fluttering moths emerge from a floral sea and ascend he said ‘Victor, you know that poster you did last week, through yellow space while a great central hand opens with the lady with wings....well, she flies!’ And I knew to reveal a staring eye. Parting lips and opening hands how his hall was arranged with the lights, so I knew perform the visual poetry of the poster’s apotheosis exactly what he was talking about. The red canceled to the fourth dimension. This temporal journey is the the blue and the blue canceled the red.” Simple, but ultimate visual trip of the psychedelic poster, and one of revolutionary, it was a psychedelic breakthrough for the defining works of the Psychedelic Poster Movement. the poster.

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54 55 LIGHTSHOWS AND THE PERFORMANCE CONTEXT

The term Dance Concert describes a performance with an open dance floor where the audience not only danced, but could do… anything. This could run the gamut from dancing day-glo sprites to Ken Kesey in a space suit. The San Francisco area events had a decidedly unbridled, Dionysian and psychedelic bent. This was particularly true of the early and the Trips Festival, which extended to an extreme the kind of event described by Allan Kaprow: ...we do not come to look at things. We simply enter, are surrounded, and become a part of what surrounds us, passively or actively according to our talents for ‘engagement.’

Psychedelic rock posters are both self-sufficient works of art and participants in a total-work- of-art. Like the interwoven meanings apparent in the rock concert, the entire Haight-Ashbury scene wasn’t just happening, it was a Happening. The dance concert concentrated this experience into a psychedelic Gesamtkunstwerk (or “universal artwork,” in a term popularized by 19th century composer Richard Wagner). The posters became part of the total environment of the multi-media concert—extending it in time and space before and after the actual performance. Like the lightshow, they were part of the larger visual and cognitive environment of the event. As physical artifacts, they also became the enduring “look” of the concert in its preamble and afterlife.

The spontaneous happenings seeded the Fillmore and Avalon concerts and set the template for the multi-media nature of the performance. Music, lightshow, audience, and concert posters fused into a larger entity that freely and playfully teetered from structure to spontaneity. The dance concert mutates into a psychedelic wonderland—a synthesis of pulsating, flowing liquid lightshow and equally spontaneous music.

Numerous lightshow acts popped up in the Bay Area—Bill Ham, Dan Bruhn, Glenn McKay, The Holy See, The Brotherhood of Light, Little Princess 109, and the North American Ibis Alchemical Company among the finest. Each had its own unique feel and look. Lee Conklin’s posters evoke the lightshow’s overlay of forms, colors, and undulating lines. The different “layers” breathe in and out of focus, not unlike the visual fluidity of the liquid light show. X

56 57 MAKING A LITHOGRAPHIC POSTER Dan Jacobs and Kaitlin Maestas

A collaborative process The designer and printer often collaborated on both artistic and technical decisions in the creation of these lithographic posters. While the artist produced drawings or collages, the printer contributed expertise on the most effective way to realize the design using the technology available within the print shop. Together they re-worked the designs until printing plates for each required color were ready for production. The original drawings, paste- ups, photographic transparencies, lithographic plates, and other materials illustrated here demonstrate the complexity of this collaborative process.

Many of the printers were older and more experienced craftsmen than the artists. Levon Mosgovfian, who owned Tea Lautrec Litho in San Francisco, was one of the most skilled and experimental pressman of the era.

Facing: The finished poster shown is printed in four colors of ink, each of which prints from a separately prepared metal plate. The four surrounding images illustrated are printer’s-proofs Used to inspect the print quality of each plate.

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Offset printing Creating transparencies for the plates The key step in offset lithography is the creation of a set of plates, each used for printing a Through a painstaking and highly repetitive series of cutting and pasting operations, single color of ink. In the traditional, pre-digital process, flexible plates of zinc or aluminum enlargements and reductions, the artists and printers create several variations of illustration are first treated with photosensitive material and exposed to light projected through a boards, or mechanical drawings. Each intended color requires its own finished “mechanical.” transparency. The exposed areas harden, creating a durable surface coating corresponding to the area to be printed. The unhardened coating material is easily washed from the plate The finished mechanicals are photographed using high contrast film, which is especially useful of exposed metal. The light-hardened coating that remains is receptive to ink, while the for capturing precise detail. The resulting transparencies can then be enlarged or reduced as nonprinting areas easily take a coating of water. The water picked up by non-printing areas needed (e.g. to create smaller items such as tickets). Halftone screens (with the familiar dot prevents the oil-based inks from sticking to those areas. patterns) are used to reproduce photographs, washes or other tonal effects. The goal is to create a final transparency for each plate at each scale needed (e.g. poster, handbill, ticket).

Acetate overlays are an alternate approach for designing plates. Working  directly on clear acetate, the   artist creates the portion of   the image corresponding to a

plate fountain  ink fountain  single color. With this method

 each color in the image is  blanket or represented through separate   offset fountain overlays, which together  build up the multi-color final The term “offset lithography” image. The production of the

refers to the use of an “offset” water fountain  acetates is very meticulous, intermediate cylinder roller as the artists and the printers

(sometimes called a “blanket” roller),  repeatedly test alignment, which transfers the ink to the paper. paper registration, and color. It also picks up water to prevent ink from sticking where it’s not needed.  The printing plate itself never comes impression into contact with the paper sheet.  cylinder

The flexible metal plates were sized to take advantage of the largest sheet of paper that the press could handle. Plates laid out to “gang” items of various sizes, typically including a poster, handbill, postcards and tickets. Afterall colors were printed, the items were separated using special cutting machines.

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Exposing the plates and printing The various final acetates or transparencies are pasted onto gridded carrier sheets such as goldenrod paper, which are in turn pasted onto cardboard sheets; this creates the final layout of the plate. A photograph of the completed “flat” is made for each color in the design. Resulting transparencies are used for exposing the plate in preparation for printing. The plates are wrapped onto the plate cylinder of the press and sheets of paper are passed through the press, once for each color of ink. When the ink is dry, the printed sheets are ready to be cut and trimmed into stacks of posters, handbills, tickets and postcards.

This group of items includes an original mechanical drawing, a zinc plate, a red color proof sheet, and a finished “ganged” sheet of two posters. The unusual combination of posters for two separate concerts (without tickets) suggests that this plate was prepared for a second printing of popular posters. Such reprints were often done within days of the concert date.

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