PSYCHEDELIC ART

L'Arte Psichedelica si sviluppa nel decennio 60/70, diramandosi dalle grandi metropoli dell'America del nord, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, da lì espandendosi in tutto il mondo. E' un'arte prevalentemente grafica, memore del pop americano e delle sue incursioni nel mondo dei fumetti, con radici culturali nelle grafica orientale, una forma artistica che ebbe molta influenza anche nell'arte del '900 europeo, basti pensare a Toulouse-Lautrec, a Klimt, a Schiele ed a tanti altri artisti dell'Art Nouveau, e che ricompare nell'Arte Psichedelica sotto forma di un ricercato decorativismo della linea, tendenzialmente elegante e flessuosa.

La Psichedelia à un fenomeno a vasto raggio, che contamina molte forme espressive, la musica, ad esempio, che in questo periodo vede la nascita dello stile rock più duro e radicale (Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Doors, Janis Joplin ecc...), a stretto contatto con l'arte visiva, tanto che molti artisti psichedelici disegnano copertine, locandine e marchi per i dischi più famosi. Ciò faciliterà la messa in scena di grandiosi happening, rimasti celebri nella storia di questa corrente, a metà tra il concerto e l'estemporanea d'arte, con la freschezza espressiva del dilettantismo destinato a divenire ben presto una collaudata forma di professionismo creando, come avviene per la Pop Art, un vero e proprio fenomeno di mercato (famosa e preziosa la collezione di poster di proprietà di Paul Olsen).

L'Arte Psichedelica produce con tecniche raffinate e ricercate (viene rispolverato l'uso dell'aerografo, specie dall'italiano Guido Daniele), opere di grande abilità grafica, in cui la linea contorta introduce effetti di voluta distorsione dell'immagine o della scritta, al limite della visione allucinatoria prodotta in stato di alterata percezione sensoriale: non è infatti da escludere nè da sottovalutare il fatto che concorra al risultato artistico finale l'alterazione mentale prodotta dal consumo di LSD ed altre droghe allucinogene, messo in atto nel tentativo di potenziare le capacità creative della mente.

D'altra parte la cultura psichedelica improntata ad un concetto  un po' generico di solidarietà universale (il  primo Be-In di San Francisco è una sorta di grande raduno tribale)  non si fà remore nell'appoggiare l'uso di droghe in grado di provocare una espansione della coscienza finalizzata a generare esperienze creative al di fuori della norma, al tempo stesso manifestando in tal modo una presa di posizione non solo in campo artistico, ma più vastamente sociale, intellettualisticamente provocatoria nei confronti del puritanesimo delle classi borghesi americane.

Tra gli americani, va citato Rick Griffin (1944-1991), artista visionario autore di celebri copertine di album discografici e manifesti per concerti o pellicole cinematografiche, disegni eleganti e veloci eseguiti con il rapidograph, uno strumento ritenuto eminentemente tecnico, minutamente dettagliati e pervasi da una surreale vena favolistica.

In Italia l'Arte Psichedelica ha un suo personaggio rappresentativo nel milanese Matteo Guarnaccia (1954), ecclettica figura-cult di psicoartista dalla spiritualità laica, pittore, illustratore, performer, saggista teorico dell' Arte Psichedelica, autore di testi fondamentali sull'argomento.

Storicamente inserita in un periodo di grandi entusiasmi e di grandi utopie, inseguite in memorabili scontri con il potere costituzionalizzato e con la ricerca di esperienze border-line sulle quali le droghe hanno spesso proiettato la loro ombra inquietante, l'Arte Psichedelica appartiene ad una generazione che voleva cambiare il mondo e che in parte, forse, lo ha fatto.

SAN FRANCISCO AND THE COUNTERCULTURE

Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s saw widespread destruction and redevelopment of west side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition.

San Francisco has often been a magnet for America's counterculture. During the 1950s, City Lights Bookstore in the North Beach neighborhood was an important publisher of Beat Generation literature. Some of the story of the evolving arts scene of the 1950s is told in the article San Francisco Renaissance. During the latter half of the following decade, the 1960s, San Francisco was the center of hippie and other alternative culture. The Hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the early 1960s and spread around the world, The word hippie derives from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. These people inherited the countercultural values of the Beat generation, created their own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution, and used drugs such as cannabis and LSD to explore alternative states of consciousness. The Haight-Ashbury 'anti-community' rested on a rejection of American commercialism. Haight residents eschewed the material benefits of modern life, encouraged by the distribution of free food and organized shelter by the Diggers, and the creation of institutions such as the Free Clinic for medical treatment. Psychedelic drug use became but one means to find a 'new reality'.

At this time, the San Francisco Sound emerged as an influential force in rock music, with such acts as Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead achieving international prominence. These groups blurred the boundaries between folk, rock and jazz traditions and further developed rock's lyrical content. Hippie fashions and values had a major effect on culture, influencing popular music, television, film, literature, and the arts. Since the 1960s, many aspects of hippie culture have been assimilated by the mainstream. The religious and cultural diversity espoused by the hippies has gained widespread acceptance, and Eastern philosophy and spiritual concepts have reached a wide audience. The hippie legacy can be observed in contemporary culture in a myriad of forms—from health food, to music festivals, to contemporary sexual mores, and even to the cyberspace revolution.

San Francisco's frontier spirit and wild and ribald character started its reputation as a gay realm in the first half of the twentieth century. World War II saw a jump in the gay population when the US military actively sought out and dishonorably discharged homosexuals. From 1941 to 1945, more than 9000 gay servicemen and women were discharged, and many were processed out in San Francisco. The late 1960s also brought in a new wave of lesbians and gays who were more radical and less mainstream and who had flocked to San Francisco not only for its gay-friendly reputation, but for its reputation as a radical, left-wing center. These new residents were the prime movers of Gay Liberation and often lived communally, buying decrepit Victorians in the Haight and fixing them up. When drugs and violence became a serious problem in the Haight area, many lesbians and gays simply moved "over the hill" to the Castro, replacing Irish-Americans who had moved to the more comfortable suburbs. The Castro became known as a Gay Mecca, and its gay population swelled as significant numbers of gay people moved to San Francisco in the 1970s and 1980s.

The prelude to the Summer of Love was the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park on January 14, 1967, which was planned by the Diggers as a "gathering of tribes". The event was announced by the Haight-Ashbury's own psychedelic newspaper, the San Francisco Oracle. The gathering of approximately 50,000 like-minded people made the Human Be-In the first event that confirmed there was a viable hippie scene.

The ever-increasing numbers of youth making a pilgrimage to the Haight-Ashbury district alarmed the San Francisco authorities, whose public stance was that they would keep the hippies away. However Adam Kneeman, a long-time resident of the Haight-Ashbury, recalls that the police did little to help, leaving the organization of the hordes of newcomers to the overwhelmed residents.

College and high-school students began streaming into the Haight during the spring break of 1967. City government leaders, determined to stop the influx of young people once schools let out for summer, unwittingly brought additional attention to the scene. An ongoing series of articles in local papers alerted national media to the hippies' growing momentum. That spring, Haight community leaders responded by forming the Council of the Summer of Love, giving the word-of-mouth event an official-sounding name. The mainstream media's coverage of hippie life in the Haight-Ashbury drew the attention of youth from all over America. The media's fascination with the "counterculture" continued with the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, where approximately 30,000 people gathered for the first day of the music festival, with the number swelling to 60,000 on the final day. Media coverage of the Monterey Pop Festival facilitated the Summer of Love, since large numbers of fledging hippies headed to San Francisco to hear their favorite bands, among them Jefferson Airplane, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Otis Redding, The Byrds, the Grateful Dead, The Who, and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin.

During the Summer of Love, as many as 100,000 young people from around the world flocked to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, Berkeley and other San Francisco Bay Area cities to join in a popularized version of the hippie experience. Free food, free drugs and free love were available in Golden Gate Park, a Free Clinic (whose work continues today) was established for medical treatment, and a Free Store gave away basic necessities to anyone who needed them. The Summer of Love attracted a wide range of people of various ages: teenagers and college students drawn by their peers and the allure of joining a cultural utopia, middle-class vacationers, and even partying military personnel from bases within driving distance. The large influx of newcomers began to cause problems. The neighborhood could not accommodate so many people descending on it so quickly, and the Haight-Ashbury scene deteriorated rapidly. Overcrowding, homelessness, hunger, drug problems, and crime afflicted the neighborhood. Many people simply left in the fall to resume their college studies.

On October 6, 1967, those remaining in the Haight staged a mock funeral, "The Death of the Hippie" ceremony, to signal the end of the played-out scene.

WOODSTOCK FESTIVAL OF 1969

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was an event held at Sullivan County, New York. The festival exemplified the counterculture of the late 1960s - early 1970s and the "hippie era." Thirty-two of the best-known musicians of the day appeared during the sometimes rainy weekend. Although attempts have been made over the years to recreate the festival, the original event has proven to be unique and legendary. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest moments in popular music history and was listed on Rolling Stone's 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll.

Woodstock was assembled through the joint work of Michael Lang, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, and Artie Kornfeld. It was Roberts and Rosenman who had the finances, and who placed the following advertisement in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. It ultimately cost more than $2.4 million.

Lang and Kornfeld noticed the ad, and the four men got together. One of their original ideas was for a recording studio, to be tucked off in the woods more than 100 miles from Manhattan in a town called Woodstock originally to discuss a retreat-like recording studio in Woodstock, but the idea morphed into the festival as we have come to know it. The location would reflect the of the counterculture, and also was the home of late 1960s, musicians like Bob Dylan, The Band, Tim Hardin, Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. There were further doubts over the venture, as Roberts wondered whether to consolidate his losses and pull the plug, or to continue pumping his own finances into the project. His decision to continue with the project resulted in one of the most successful events in music history. To this day, the founders of Woodstock disagree on who came up with the original idea for the concert. Lang and Kornfeld say Woodstock was always planned as the largest music festival ever held.

By early April, the promoters were carefully cultivating the Woodstock image in the underground press, in publications like the Village Voice and Rolling Stone magazine. Ads began to run in The New York Times and The Times Herald-Record in May. But to them Woodstock wasn't a matter of building stages, signing acts or even selling tickets. The festival was always a state of mind, a happening that would exemplify the generation. The event's publicity shrewdly appropriated the counterculture's symbols and catch phrases. The group settled on the concrete slogan of "Three Days of Peace and Music". The promoters figured "peace" would link the anti-war sentiment to the rock concert. They also wanted to avoid any violence and figured that a slogan with "peace" in it would help keep order

Initial hopes for attendances were from about 60.000 to 100.000, but they would have been satisfied even with 50.000. Tickets for the event cost US$18 in advance (approximately $75 today adjusted for inflation) and $24 at the gate for all three days. It only became a "free concert" after it became obvious that the event was drawing hundreds of thousands more people than the organizers had prepared for. Around 186,000 tickets were sold beforehand and organizers anticipated approximately 200,000 festival-goers would turn up.

Woodstock Ventures was trying to book the biggest rock'n'roll bands in America. They solved the problem by promising paychecks unheard of in 1969. The big breakthrough came with the signing of the top psychedelic band of the day, The Jefferson Airplane, for the incredible sum of $12,000. The Airplane usually took gigs for $5,000 to $6,000. The Who then came in for $12,500. The rest of the acts started to fall in line. In all, Ventures spent $180,000 on talent.

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969 drew more than 450,000 people, who came together to celebrate "three days of peace and music". It was the biggest bash for the counterculture and is a reminder of the youthful hedonism and excess of the 60s.For four days, the site became a countercultural mini-nation in which minds were open, drugs were available and love was "free". The music began Friday afternoon at 5:07pm August 15 and continued until mid-morning Monday August 18. At the time, it held the record for the largest music audience in the world until the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen in 1973 drew 100,000 more people. It also created a massive traffic jam and closed the New York State Thruway, creating one of the worst traffic jams and making it impossible for another 25.000 people, on their way to Woodstock, to attend.  It also inspired a slew of local and state laws to ensure that nothing like it would ever happen again. Woodstock, like only a handful of historical events, has become part of the culture’s outstanding moments. It has become an instant adjective denoting youthful hedonism and 60's excess, an amalgam that will never be reproduced again.

The bands appealed to the generation that was questioning the direction of American society. Many of the most influential artists were at the festival, and it was their influence on the youth that brought them together. Although the festival was remarkably peaceful given the number of people and the conditions involved, there were two recorded fatalities: one from what was believed to be a heroin overdose; another caused by an occupied sleeping bag accidentally being run over by a tractor in a nearby hayfield. There were also two births recorded at the event (one in a car caught in traffic and another in a helicopter) and four miscarriages. Yet, in tune with the idealistic hopes of the 1960s, Woodstock satisfied most attendees. Especially memorable were the sense of social harmony, the quality of music, and the overwhelming mass of people, many sporting bohemian dress, behavior, and attitudes.

After all it was seen as a victory of peace and love. Nearly half a million people filled with possibilities of disaster, riot, looting, and catastrophe spent the three days with music and peace on their minds. Sound for the concert was engineered by Bill Hanley, whose innovations in the sound industry have earned him the prestigious Parnelli Award.

Despite delays, the danger of electrical shocks and general backstage anarchy, Woodstock pulled off the ultimate magic act of the 1960s: turning utter rain-soaked chaos into the greatest rock festival ever and the decade's most famous and successful experiment in peace and community.

On Monday, August 18th, they all melted back into America after witnessing legendary performances by, among others, the Who, Santana, Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker, Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix and, in only their second live show together, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

A plaque has been placed at the original site commemorating the festival. The field and the stage area remain preserved in their rural setting. On the field are the remnants of a neon flower and bass from the original concert. In the middle of the field, there is a totem pole with wood carvings of Jimi Hendrix on the bottom, Janis Joplin in the middle, and Jerry Garcia on top. A concert hall has been erected up the hill, and the fields of the old Yasgur farm are still visited by people of all generations.