and the relationship between the two
By Diana Corzine and Valeria Gomez, May 12, 2020
In the 1960s, LSD became popularized as the counterculture developed. LSD was used to escape the problems of society and stray away from normality. At the time, Timothy Leary, a famous psychologist of the 60s states and encourages American students to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” Influences like this led to a time that was known as the Psychedelic Era which occurred between the early 1960s to the mid-1970s and popularized many different forms of thought, altering creative expression in the field of art and lifestyle habits. From lettering to fashion, and everything in between, the relationship between how psychedelics influenced art and likewise, how art proliferated psychedelic usage will be examined.
Psychedelic Festivals and Concerts
The Fillmore Auditorium was a large auditorium in San Francisco, California which opened in 1912 and was originally named the Majestic Hall. The auditorium turned into the Fillmore Auditorium by the 1960s and was advertised with eye-catching, multi-colored psychedelic posters that are now treasured as expensive vintage art. The concerts featured far-out light shows, uninhibited dancing, and whatever turned young people on at the height of counterculture.
At the auditorium, psychedelic festivals developed and were known as gatherings that promoted psychedelic music and art in an effort to unite participants in a communal psychedelic experience. Psychedelic festivals have been described as “the routine expenditure of excess energy, and through self-sacrifice in acts of abandonment involving ecstatic dancing often fueled by chemical cocktails.”
Indeed, psychedelics were bringing people together through forms of art: music and dance. Individuals participated in mass groups to experience the profound effects of the drug together, such behavior was widely new at the time. Scattered across the auditorium, psychedelic 2D works filled with psychedelic typography would be viewed by groupies donning psychedelic fashion and exchanging their psychedelic art editions of Underground Comix. Psychedelics thus became not only a habit but a lifestyle that dominated the 60s to mid-70s.
Psychedelic Typography
First, you have words; then, you have pictures. Starting in 1966, artist Wes Wilson designed posters for concert promoter Bill Graham’s, a known earlier supporter of the Grateful Dead, rock shows at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. Immediately, one may recognize the swirling, psychedelic font of the poster. Wilson is accredited to pioneering “the free-flowing, block lettering” by taking Australian designer Alfred Roller’s font and placing the same letterforms on a swirling curve, as opposed to the straight lines typical of the original type designer. In a discussion between Wilson and Graham, the two speak on the functionality of the font:
“‘Well, it’s nice, but I can’t read it,’ Mr. Graham is said to have remarked.
‘Yeah,’ Mr. Wilson responded. ‘and that’s why people are gonna stop and look at it.’” (Genzlinger)
Breaking with previous forms of graphic design, Wilson’s posters exhibited a fluidity of purposeful carelessness. Take for instance Joost Schmidt’s poster for the 1923 Bahaus Exhibition in Weimar or perhaps, 1950s advertisements and movie covers; one similarity these two past forms of graphic design share is that they are meant to be eligible and eye-catching. While Wilson’s posters are also undeniably show-stoppers, Wilson’s posters truly excel at it. See, individuals become familiarized with advertisements and common phrasing and logo designs, so they may easily pass by another poster without a second thought because of the boredom and loss of attraction that comes with redundant marketing tactics. However, Wilson’s method of purposely countering the eligibility tactic, a basic marketing must for decades, changed the game of how to best attract customers. He participated in a form of anti-design by creating posters whos lack of eligibility countered the norms of what was satisfied visual communication principles, and in doing so, he attracted an array of curious viewers and psychedelic users. The use of hard-to-read typography created an exclusive feeling in the psychedelia community, where only those who participated were meant to enjoy the posters swirling media and strange, new text. Yet again, new ways of art and lifestyle are being born as a direct result of psychedelic-inspired art influencing psychedelic-participant communities.
The psychedelic-inspired typography usurps time too. Not only did Wilson create eye-catching designs on posters, but he also revolutionized a font still largely used today — so much so, both his typography and artwork were placed on various pieces within Dries Van Noten’s 2016 Autumn and Winter runway collection.
Important to note is the undeniable concept of history and fashion. Fashion has a tendency to delve into what is historic and subtly and sometimes directly takes influence.
And on the topic of fashion…
Psychedelic Fashion
Between 1963 to 1971, Harper Bazaar’s, a well-known fashion magazine, most colorful editor, Diana Vreeland, left the company to join yet another infamous, editorial publication: Vogue. During Vreeland’s term, the fashion industry was being swayed by the youthquake movement of the 60s; Vreeland would capitalize on the trends deriving from street style and feature the “hippie look” and “psychedelic fashion” in the various pages of her publications.
New fashion movements, such as the Mod movement, would develop, bringing alongside them the rise in fashion icons like Twiggy, Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Kennedy, and Bridget Bardot. By showcasing what was trending (psychedelic drug usage) in various spreads and shows, the fashion industry was able to profit off the production of apparel accompanied by swirling patterns, loud, vibrant colors, and extremely avant-garde makeup looks. Finally, there existed an assortment of attire suitable for the 60s popular and prominent target market at the time: the youth counterculturalists. Having had representation in the fashion sect, the youth could happily strengthen and spread their lifestyles because they were easier to advocate for when one could dress the part too.
Psychedelic 2D Works
Continuing on with visual arts, Lee Conklin is an artist and cartoonist best known for his psychedelic poster art of the late 1960s, and his iconic album cover for Santana's debut album “The Ark.” Lee Conklin promoted live music, legendary events, and has some of the most iconic/memorable poster art of the time period. Conklin was a famous artist born in the 1940s who began to publish his work in the late 60s and early 70s which was the peak era of the counterculture. Lee Conklin was a major part of the success of the Fillmore auditorium as he contributed a total of 33 posters to the music scene. The Fillmore auditorium was a focal point for psychedelic music and the overall counterculture of the 1960s and featured artists such as Pink Floyd and Aretha Franklin. The lion poster below is one of Conklin’s design for Santana’s “The Ark” and allowed him to gain immediate approval and praise from the counterculturalists.
Anyone who saw Lee Conklin’s art was so intrigued by the choice of strokes and swirls and was unable to keep up with his imagination. Scott Montgomery, Conklin’s curator develops the theory of a “Conklin Effect” in which he finds that when viewing his art, the bystander was advised to share his imagination.
Conklin’s work in art lasted for 50 years, and his work offered voyages, visual trips, and hidden elements. He claimed that once he started drawing his thoughts aligned and turned into something of imaginative vision. Within the psychedelic era, art was gradually transforming into an experience. Here, viewers would seek out the works in an attempt to feel artistically stirred and mentally provoked; some wished to view what psychedelic drugs were perceived like and others wanted to recreate the trip, the experience. Such stimulating art contributed greatly to the dynamic of the psychedelic and counterculturalist movement. An extraordinary time in history, psychedelics were being idolized by the masses via subtle and direct representations in concerts, fashion, typography, posters… and comics!
Underground Comix
The Underground Comix were a series of comic books popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s which were often satirical in nature and expressed socially relevant topics. The subjects of the comics ranged from sex, drugs, rock music, and anti-war protest. Because the hippie movement engaged in protests against the Vietnam War, the civil rights struggle, anarchism, Women’s Lib and Gay Liberation the counterculture of drugs and freedom was promoted with the publication of these comics.
The comics touched on dangerous topics and the slow death name came from the comic’s “underlying theme about what the human race was doing to damage the native planet.” The comics imitated LSD posters to increase their sales and gained major popularity between 1968 and 1975. The works were considered very insensitive in that they humorized porn, rape, and murder. Yet, the comics were so divergent from typical comic content that they proved pioneering as many places created spin-off comics derived from the ideas originating in the Underground Comix. The comics were predominately published in the San Francisco and New York area and in Austin, Texas.
The mannerisms of communities living through the 60s and 70s were greatly altered by the way in which psychedelics influenced arts and correspondingly, through arts influencing counterculturalists (including psychedelic users). Consumer behavior changed with viewers purposely desiring to view non-eligible advertisements and pedestrians wearing loud, attention-drawing garments that parted from the elegant, sophisticated styles of the 50s and past. Individuals went to concerts and bought new forms of comics not just for the sake of the event and item, but rather, for the profound experiences and ideas brought along with them.
Through the new mannerisms in how artists expressed their works and counterculturalists went about their days, a remarkable era was defined: the Psychedelic era.
References
“About The Fillmore.” The Fillmore — San Francisco, thefillmore.com/about/.
Bream, Jon. “San Francisco’s Fillmore: Where Rock History Plays On.” Star Tribune, Star Tribune, 3 June 2014, www.startribune.com/san-francisco-s-fillmore-where-rock-history-plays-on/261161451/.
Genzlinger, Neil. “Wes Wilson, Psychedelic Poster Pioneer, Dies at 82.” The New York Times, 30 Jan. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/arts/design/wes-wilson-dead.html
Harvey, R. C. “Hare Tonic.” The 50th Anniversary of Underground Comix |, The Comics Journal, 3 Oct. 2018, www.tcj.com/the-50th-anniversary-of-underground-comix/.
“Lee Conklin.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Dec. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Conklin.
“Lee Conklin.” FAMSF Search the Collections, 21 Sept. 2018, art.famsf.org/lee-conklin.
“Lee Conklin.” Moonalice Posters, moonaliceposters.com/artists/lee-conklin/.
“Lee Conklin.” ClassicPosters.com, www.classicposters.com/artist/lee-conklin.
Lippert, Angelina. “Wes Wilson: From Art Nouveau to Psychedelic.” Posterhouse, 11 March 2020, https://posterhouse.org/blog/wes-wilson-from-art-nouveau-to-psychedelic/
“Psychedelic Era.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_era.
Sterlacci, Francesca, et al. Historical Dictionary of the Fashion Industry. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Second Edition, 2017, pp. 514
“The History of LSD — Acid, Albert Hoffman & Timothy Leary — Drug-Free World.” Foundation for a Drug-Free World, www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/lsd/a-short-history.html.
“The Fillmore.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Mar. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fillmore.
“Underground Comix.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Apr. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_comix.
“Underground Comix and the Underground Press.” Lambiek Comic Shop, Lambiek Comiclopedia, www.lambiek.net/comics/underground.htm.
