Been thinking about hippies lately. Not just me, the art world is going through (yet another interminable) hippie phase, inspired by "the rise of the new art collectives" and/or the salesmanship of gallerists Daniel Reich and John Connelly--some cynics say they're one and the same phenomenon. (Not saying I'm saying that, but have had a couple of impassioned discussions with people in the last week who think the 2003 Holland Cotter article identifying art collectives as a national trend was either part of an elaborate marketing scheme or a lazy writer being handed a package by a dealer--"collectives" being a more or less constant, short-lived byproduct of kids meeting up in art school.)
Christopher Hitchens, in a recent diatribe about how much the left sucks, sought to condense the whole 60s counterculture down to one image of lame misguidedness: the commune 20-somethings in Easy Rider scattering seed in the dusty furrows of the land where they have to come to "make their stand." That socks it home all right--but doesn't give the film credit for being a smart and subtle critique of the very phenomenon it was selling: right after the shot of the barefoot seed-sowers, the camera pulls back and lingers over a western landscape that is mountainous and dry, dry, dry. Just as you're thinking that, Peter Fonda says, "Do you get much rain out here?" (And then later, incongruously, opines "They're gonna make it.")
The photo above is a work from Justin Samson's current show at John Connelly Presents. I assume this is a sculpture Samson made and am guessing it was for a residency at Andrea Zittel's Joshua Tree, CA, studio/project space High Desert Test Sites, so no actual hippies were involved. Below is the Mondo Mondo Trading Post, which Matt Savitsky and Kevin McGarry erect outside strip mall coffee shops, bookstores and the like to trade Perler bead souvenirs. Again, no bonafide tuning in, turning on, or dropping out is occurring--day jobs are preserved while we are reminded of our buckskin past, just as in Little House on the Prairie reruns. I actually like McGarry's and Savitsky's project, and I like the Samson photo, but am just wondering--what is it with artists and hippies these days? Is it yet another media critique? (They loved the 60s back in the 80s too--loved to make fun of them--as in Kenny Scharf's sardonic black light rooms and Halley's Day Glo paints.) Is it some unironic yearning for "the real" amongst all the Starbucks simu-culture? A little of both? Can those be mixed?
when i watched ez rider i read the commune scene as derisive which surprised me since i had expected a flower power road movie. someone had a recent takedown of hitchens which described his work as "gin-soaked."
cardboard totem poles + cheesy vests = ironic no matter how earnest the geeks are who love them.
I missed the hippy thing! What was that a recycle of (?)--missed that too.
hippie was built out of recycled parts but was not an overt copy of any one thing it was more modern than post modern. it came out of other mostly non-simulated things like the beat thing, the folk revival (people have been reviving things forever without it being real simulation) thing and the rock and roll thing. not that it wasnt built on the shoulders of those predecessors but that was the end of linear invention. then came the punk thing (postmodern) and disco (postmodern).
why do you consider disco post modern? im not saying it isnt......
"Postmodern music is both a musical style and a musical condition. As a musical style, postmodern music contain characteristics of postmodern art—that is, art after modernism (see Modernism in Music). It favors eclecticism in form and musical genre, and often combines characteristics from different genres, or employs jump-cut sectionalization. It tends to be self-referential and ironic, and it blurs the boundaries between "high art" and kitsch. Daniel Albright (2004) summarizes the traits of the postmodern style as bricolage, polystylism, and randomness.
As a musical condition, postmodern music is simply the state of music in postmodernity. In this sense, postmodern music does not have any one particular style or characteristic, and is not necessarily postmodern in style. However, the music of postmodernity is thought to differ from that of modernity in that whereas modern music was valued for its fundamentals and expression, postmodern music is valued as both a commodity and a symbolic indicator of identity. For example, one significant role of music in postmodern society is to act as a language by which people can signify their identity as a member of a particular subculture."
Was your use of a quote with an Albright quote coincidental? I guess I'd argue disco was poMo because it collaged soul motifs with electronic beats but to the extent it led (with Messrs Hutter & Schneider et al) to Detroit techno and its offshoots it was an avatar of modernism. Techno=modernist (except to the extent it overtly collages). As for the hippie movement, Charles Reich called it "Consciousness Three" and it was in no sense reflexive or ironic, even if it took its elements from lots of recognizable things.
A quick recap of the Charles Reich book (a bestseller around 73 or so): Consciousness One was the pioneer carving a living (or an industry) out of the American wilderness. Consciousness Two was the organization man who worked at the napalm factory all day and then came home and bounced his baby on his knee (arguably still the dominant tendency) and Consciousness Three was getting back in tune with natural cycles, small is beautiful, bioregionalism, local labor, respect for indigenous cultures, etc.
See also this week's New Yorker on the infighting and legal wrangling of an "art collective", the Guerilla Girls.
Toobin's report makes it all sound pretty trivial. I guess if I was the founder of an agitprop group and a rival group co-opted the name, I would find a new name and tactics if I thought there was serious work still to be done in the arena I wanted reformed. Once you're a brand--and incorporated no less!--how effective can your guerrilla actions be? Sounds like these plaintiffs just want to get paid (like everyone else in NYC).
Was your use of a quote with an Albright quote coincidental?
-yes
(im trying to dust off the synapses for a longer response)
All right, I'm no expert or historian; I was ten or eleven at the height of the Hippies, lived across the Bay from SF, and saw real Hippies, felt the vibe, drove through the Haight at the height of the Summer of Love, and saw the reaction first hand. I absorbed it, and after all these years, still living here in the Bay Area, still feel that Hippie ideals are an aspect of my outlook.
None of the following is too original, but it's worth pointing out.
My list of important catalysts for the Hippy thing:
*The Vietnam War, a senseless action perpetrated and run by guys in black suits and white shirts- this is important to a reaction on many levels resulting in new choices reagarding work, fashion, relationships, nomadism.
*The Draft, a device for forcing young men to fight for something they don't believe in.
*The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, which took place on a plaza not far from where I sit and write this at this very moment, cannot be underestimated for the freeing effect it had on youth. In reaction to the chancellor's ban on clubs and other interests having tables on the plaza for information dissemination students set off a chain reaction of dissent against a instantly identifable oppressive Man. Within months the principals of the FSM spread from campus to campus.
*A University system- nationally- that increasingly required students to conform; this system clamped down on students who wanted something different, and the students bit back.
*Rock music that wasn't just Pop music with a separation between writers, producers, and performers, but a music increasingly of the auteur: think Beatles, Dylan, Hendrix, etc.- they broke it open, man.
*Concerts that became tribal gatherings created a feeling of "power in numbers" that could fight the fight, do it differently and better than the previous generation.
*Really good drugs, which lead to...
*Disillusionment with the trappings of the middle class.
What are some residual Hippie ideals? They're now often part of our everyday life: peace, love and brotherhood; doing your own thing; respect for the earth; creativity over business; feelings are important. None of this is new, nor is the fact that these all came together at once new, but what was significant was the scale at which these ideals were adopted by a huge percentage of a generation.
What I think is the downfall of the Hippie movement:
*Too many drugs.
*The idea that everything should be free.
*A failure of the ideals of Hippiedom to be fully codified and structured for a purpose, as a system for practical living, so it became a misunderstood free-for-all.
*The utter naivete that love will, like, conquer all, man, you know.
*The Hippies were still very much a part of their times- look into the movement at all and you'll still see the same pervasive sexism that was prevalent at the times. Hippies were not Feminists. The woman still did all of the cooking and weren't always at the table during meetings.
*The "turn on, tune-in, and drop out" thing didn't address sexism, labor, racism, justice, education much at all, and especially in any practical way.
*Some people got impatient and wanted more direct action. Think of the SDS and the Weathermen. It got hairier. And the Black Panthers, starting up across the Bay in Oakland, where I live, scared the bejeesus out of everyone. Here were groups that in some ways had certain ideals in common with Hippies- a desire for self-determinism and community, not being served by institutions- but they had gones. It got ugly. Although the official Hippie funeral (burial of an effigy) occured at the end of the Summer of Love in 1968, I think (I saw it on the news) the Hippie thing dragged out for years in popular culture, and made it's way into groovy clothes and sideburns, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in, everybody making God's Eyes in art class, the kidnapping of Patti Hearst (1973, I think) pretty much put a bad feeling on where things had gone.
When I see art by younger arts in SF, and I saw this in Brooklyn last week, too, I see some things not too far from the Hippies: community, DIY, a kind of post-Victorian decoration and freedom, craft, some borrowing of non-Western motif. Just a whole lot more tatoos and trucker caps. I don't know about the drugs.
Anyway, something like this.
The drawings I did two years ago called Hippie Dreams (http://interactiveu.berkeley.edu:8000/CA/stories/storyReader$990) were about some of what I wrote here, and also about the Neil Young song "Hippie Dream." I still like NY, and listen to the many live bootlegs I have pretty regularly. Guess I'm still a Hippie.
Neil Young - Hippie Dream
Take my advice
Don't listen to me
It ain't paradise
But it used to be
There was a time
When the river was wide
And the water
came running down
To the rising tide
But the wooden ships
Were just a hippie dream
Just a hippie dream.
Don't bat an eye
Don't waste a word
Don't mention nothin'
That could go unheard
'Cause the tie-dye sails
Are the screamin' sheets
And the dusty trail
Leads to blood
in the streets
And the wooden ships
Are a hippie dream
Capsized in excess
If you know what I mean.
Just because
it's over for you
Don't mean
it's over for me
It's a victory
for the heart
Every time
the music starts
So please
don't kill the machine
Don't kill the machine
Don't kill the machine.
Another flower child
goes to seed
In an ether-filled
room of meat-hooks
It's so ugly
So ugly.
I just watched a documentary called Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst on PBS. I was seven when all that happened so, although I sort of knew the story I didn't really remember it.
The SLA really went against the laid back hippy that has become the stereotype of the era. These people were serious, willing to die and kill for a cause. We can glorify and or poke fun at the hippies, but we should also remember that there was a political push that's missing now.
Just one more thing: some of the imagery and media being used by (mostly) younger artists shouldn't be too surprising at all, given how things like macrame, decoupage, mobiles, ;leatherwork, beading, etc. made their way into the standard art class curriculum in the late 60's through the late 70's, perhaps the early 80's. Younger artists may have encountered it first hand in school, summer school, after school programs, camp, or may have encountered the craft work of their parents. There is something nostaligic about it, of course, but also something being transmitted from one generation to another, and of course consuming previous generations.
Justin Samson's work above not only looks cool but is also kind of mythical, being all blown out of proportion, so big that the God's Eye is now a totem, no longer personal, more tribal.
I remember now Tom's posts months back about the Mondo Mondo Trading Post, which is a fascinating project, but I hadn't connected Kevin McGarry to it, who I just met last week at the Rhizome panel- I wish 'd been able to make that connection.
I also met Jenny Walty last week and visited her studio. I found her mobiles fascinating- very deliberate construction; specific subject matter read in interesting ways through the tangential narrative of the mobile; highly constructed and sensitive to color and materials. More at http://www.open-ground.org/cgi-bin/wiki.rb/JennyWalty.html.
Joester, Patty Hearst wrote an autobiography called "Every Secret Thing". Check it out, very readable. I was pretty young too when it happened, so I was surprised to read that she was only 18 years old when she was kidnapped.
heres my hippie song quote. now that we invented hippies there will always be hippies. same with punks even though they were poMo the trope was established. i read someone on a message board describing the current rockabilly clones as "...no better than renaissance fair dudes." i use a similar seat of the pants process for sorting stuff like art, lifestyle modes, etc.
heres a (not so) quick outline in lieu of actual thinking
this initial sentiment
maybe hippiedom wasnt ironic but it required an appreciation of the irony inherent in Consciousness Two before it came to "consciousness."
got me thinking about nihilism which led to metanarratives and this which seemingly echoed Charles Reich:In the "postmodern era" metanarratives have lost their power to convince – they are, literally, stories that are told in order to legitimise various versions of "the truth". With the transition from modern to postmodern, Lyotard proposes that metanarratives should give way to 'petit récits', or more modest and "localised" narratives. Borrowing from the works of Wittgenstein and his theory of the "models of discourse" Lyotard constructs his vision of a progressive politics. He envisages a progressive politics that is ground in the cohabitation of a whole range of diverse and always locally legitimated language games. Postmodernists attempt to replace metanarratives by focusing on specific local contexts as well as the diversity of human experience. They argue for the existence of a "multiplicity of theoretical standpoints", rather than grand, all-encompassing theories.
and then the rest of the day happened without incident.
this was a great exhibit, I saw it in NH and a photo does not do it justice; the interactions between the traders and the artists was so much a part of it, how to capture that?
Just word of mouth - stories - thanks.
|
Been thinking about hippies lately. Not just me, the art world is going through (yet another interminable) hippie phase, inspired by "the rise of the new art collectives" and/or the salesmanship of gallerists Daniel Reich and John Connelly--some cynics say they're one and the same phenomenon. (Not saying I'm saying that, but have had a couple of impassioned discussions with people in the last week who think the 2003 Holland Cotter article identifying art collectives as a national trend was either part of an elaborate marketing scheme or a lazy writer being handed a package by a dealer--"collectives" being a more or less constant, short-lived byproduct of kids meeting up in art school.)
Christopher Hitchens, in a recent diatribe about how much the left sucks, sought to condense the whole 60s counterculture down to one image of lame misguidedness: the commune 20-somethings in Easy Rider scattering seed in the dusty furrows of the land where they have to come to "make their stand." That socks it home all right--but doesn't give the film credit for being a smart and subtle critique of the very phenomenon it was selling: right after the shot of the barefoot seed-sowers, the camera pulls back and lingers over a western landscape that is mountainous and dry, dry, dry. Just as you're thinking that, Peter Fonda says, "Do you get much rain out here?" (And then later, incongruously, opines "They're gonna make it.")
The photo above is a work from Justin Samson's current show at John Connelly Presents. I assume this is a sculpture Samson made and am guessing it was for a residency at Andrea Zittel's Joshua Tree, CA, studio/project space High Desert Test Sites, so no actual hippies were involved. Below is the Mondo Mondo Trading Post, which Matt Savitsky and Kevin McGarry erect outside strip mall coffee shops, bookstores and the like to trade Perler bead souvenirs. Again, no bonafide tuning in, turning on, or dropping out is occurring--day jobs are preserved while we are reminded of our buckskin past, just as in Little House on the Prairie reruns. I actually like McGarry's and Savitsky's project, and I like the Samson photo, but am just wondering--what is it with artists and hippies these days? Is it yet another media critique? (They loved the 60s back in the 80s too--loved to make fun of them--as in Kenny Scharf's sardonic black light rooms and Halley's Day Glo paints.) Is it some unironic yearning for "the real" amongst all the Starbucks simu-culture? A little of both? Can those be mixed?
- tom moody 5-25-2005 7:20 am
when i watched ez rider i read the commune scene as derisive which surprised me since i had expected a flower power road movie. someone had a recent takedown of hitchens which described his work as "gin-soaked."
cardboard totem poles + cheesy vests = ironic no matter how earnest the geeks are who love them.
- dave 5-25-2005 7:44 am
I missed the hippy thing! What was that a recycle of (?)--missed that too.
- brent hallard (guest) 5-25-2005 2:52 pm
hippie was built out of recycled parts but was not an overt copy of any one thing it was more modern than post modern. it came out of other mostly non-simulated things like the beat thing, the folk revival (people have been reviving things forever without it being real simulation) thing and the rock and roll thing. not that it wasnt built on the shoulders of those predecessors but that was the end of linear invention. then came the punk thing (postmodern) and disco (postmodern).
- bill 5-25-2005 4:48 pm
why do you consider disco post modern? im not saying it isnt......
- dave 5-25-2005 6:03 pm
- dave 5-25-2005 6:58 pm
Was your use of a quote with an Albright quote coincidental? I guess I'd argue disco was poMo because it collaged soul motifs with electronic beats but to the extent it led (with Messrs Hutter & Schneider et al) to Detroit techno and its offshoots it was an avatar of modernism. Techno=modernist (except to the extent it overtly collages). As for the hippie movement, Charles Reich called it "Consciousness Three" and it was in no sense reflexive or ironic, even if it took its elements from lots of recognizable things.
- tom moody 5-25-2005 7:34 pm
A quick recap of the Charles Reich book (a bestseller around 73 or so): Consciousness One was the pioneer carving a living (or an industry) out of the American wilderness. Consciousness Two was the organization man who worked at the napalm factory all day and then came home and bounced his baby on his knee (arguably still the dominant tendency) and Consciousness Three was getting back in tune with natural cycles, small is beautiful, bioregionalism, local labor, respect for indigenous cultures, etc.
- tom moody 5-25-2005 7:47 pm
See also this week's New Yorker on the infighting and legal wrangling of an "art collective", the Guerilla Girls.
- anonymous (guest) 5-25-2005 8:22 pm
Toobin's report makes it all sound pretty trivial. I guess if I was the founder of an agitprop group and a rival group co-opted the name, I would find a new name and tactics if I thought there was serious work still to be done in the arena I wanted reformed. Once you're a brand--and incorporated no less!--how effective can your guerrilla actions be? Sounds like these plaintiffs just want to get paid (like everyone else in NYC).
- tom moody 5-25-2005 8:32 pm
Was your use of a quote with an Albright quote coincidental?
-yes
(im trying to dust off the synapses for a longer response)
- dave 5-25-2005 9:15 pm
All right, I'm no expert or historian; I was ten or eleven at the height of the Hippies, lived across the Bay from SF, and saw real Hippies, felt the vibe, drove through the Haight at the height of the Summer of Love, and saw the reaction first hand. I absorbed it, and after all these years, still living here in the Bay Area, still feel that Hippie ideals are an aspect of my outlook.
None of the following is too original, but it's worth pointing out.
My list of important catalysts for the Hippy thing:
*The Vietnam War, a senseless action perpetrated and run by guys in black suits and white shirts- this is important to a reaction on many levels resulting in new choices reagarding work, fashion, relationships, nomadism.
*The Draft, a device for forcing young men to fight for something they don't believe in.
*The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, which took place on a plaza not far from where I sit and write this at this very moment, cannot be underestimated for the freeing effect it had on youth. In reaction to the chancellor's ban on clubs and other interests having tables on the plaza for information dissemination students set off a chain reaction of dissent against a instantly identifable oppressive Man. Within months the principals of the FSM spread from campus to campus.
*A University system- nationally- that increasingly required students to conform; this system clamped down on students who wanted something different, and the students bit back.
*Rock music that wasn't just Pop music with a separation between writers, producers, and performers, but a music increasingly of the auteur: think Beatles, Dylan, Hendrix, etc.- they broke it open, man.
*Concerts that became tribal gatherings created a feeling of "power in numbers" that could fight the fight, do it differently and better than the previous generation.
*Really good drugs, which lead to...
*Disillusionment with the trappings of the middle class.
What are some residual Hippie ideals? They're now often part of our everyday life: peace, love and brotherhood; doing your own thing; respect for the earth; creativity over business; feelings are important. None of this is new, nor is the fact that these all came together at once new, but what was significant was the scale at which these ideals were adopted by a huge percentage of a generation.
What I think is the downfall of the Hippie movement:
*Too many drugs.
*The idea that everything should be free.
*A failure of the ideals of Hippiedom to be fully codified and structured for a purpose, as a system for practical living, so it became a misunderstood free-for-all.
*The utter naivete that love will, like, conquer all, man, you know.
*The Hippies were still very much a part of their times- look into the movement at all and you'll still see the same pervasive sexism that was prevalent at the times. Hippies were not Feminists. The woman still did all of the cooking and weren't always at the table during meetings.
*The "turn on, tune-in, and drop out" thing didn't address sexism, labor, racism, justice, education much at all, and especially in any practical way.
*Some people got impatient and wanted more direct action. Think of the SDS and the Weathermen. It got hairier. And the Black Panthers, starting up across the Bay in Oakland, where I live, scared the bejeesus out of everyone. Here were groups that in some ways had certain ideals in common with Hippies- a desire for self-determinism and community, not being served by institutions- but they had gones. It got ugly. Although the official Hippie funeral (burial of an effigy) occured at the end of the Summer of Love in 1968, I think (I saw it on the news) the Hippie thing dragged out for years in popular culture, and made it's way into groovy clothes and sideburns, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in, everybody making God's Eyes in art class, the kidnapping of Patti Hearst (1973, I think) pretty much put a bad feeling on where things had gone.
When I see art by younger arts in SF, and I saw this in Brooklyn last week, too, I see some things not too far from the Hippies: community, DIY, a kind of post-Victorian decoration and freedom, craft, some borrowing of non-Western motif. Just a whole lot more tatoos and trucker caps. I don't know about the drugs.
Anyway, something like this.
The drawings I did two years ago called Hippie Dreams (http://interactiveu.berkeley.edu:8000/CA/stories/storyReader$990) were about some of what I wrote here, and also about the Neil Young song "Hippie Dream." I still like NY, and listen to the many live bootlegs I have pretty regularly. Guess I'm still a Hippie.
Neil Young - Hippie Dream
Take my advice
Don't listen to me
It ain't paradise
But it used to be
There was a time
When the river was wide
And the water
came running down
To the rising tide
But the wooden ships
Were just a hippie dream
Just a hippie dream.
Don't bat an eye
Don't waste a word
Don't mention nothin'
That could go unheard
'Cause the tie-dye sails
Are the screamin' sheets
And the dusty trail
Leads to blood
in the streets
And the wooden ships
Are a hippie dream
Capsized in excess
If you know what I mean.
Just because
it's over for you
Don't mean
it's over for me
It's a victory
for the heart
Every time
the music starts
So please
don't kill the machine
Don't kill the machine
Don't kill the machine.
Another flower child
goes to seed
In an ether-filled
room of meat-hooks
It's so ugly
So ugly.
- chrisashley (guest) 5-25-2005 10:17 pm
I just watched a documentary called Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst on PBS. I was seven when all that happened so, although I sort of knew the story I didn't really remember it.
The SLA really went against the laid back hippy that has become the stereotype of the era. These people were serious, willing to die and kill for a cause. We can glorify and or poke fun at the hippies, but we should also remember that there was a political push that's missing now.
- joester 5-25-2005 10:27 pm
Just one more thing: some of the imagery and media being used by (mostly) younger artists shouldn't be too surprising at all, given how things like macrame, decoupage, mobiles, ;leatherwork, beading, etc. made their way into the standard art class curriculum in the late 60's through the late 70's, perhaps the early 80's. Younger artists may have encountered it first hand in school, summer school, after school programs, camp, or may have encountered the craft work of their parents. There is something nostaligic about it, of course, but also something being transmitted from one generation to another, and of course consuming previous generations.
Justin Samson's work above not only looks cool but is also kind of mythical, being all blown out of proportion, so big that the God's Eye is now a totem, no longer personal, more tribal.
I remember now Tom's posts months back about the Mondo Mondo Trading Post, which is a fascinating project, but I hadn't connected Kevin McGarry to it, who I just met last week at the Rhizome panel- I wish 'd been able to make that connection.
I also met Jenny Walty last week and visited her studio. I found her mobiles fascinating- very deliberate construction; specific subject matter read in interesting ways through the tangential narrative of the mobile; highly constructed and sensitive to color and materials. More at http://www.open-ground.org/cgi-bin/wiki.rb/JennyWalty.html.
- chrisashley (guest) 5-25-2005 11:33 pm
Joester, Patty Hearst wrote an autobiography called "Every Secret Thing". Check it out, very readable. I was pretty young too when it happened, so I was surprised to read that she was only 18 years old when she was kidnapped.
- L.M. 5-26-2005 12:52 am
heres my hippie song quote. now that we invented hippies there will always be hippies. same with punks even though they were poMo the trope was established. i read someone on a message board describing the current rockabilly clones as "...no better than renaissance fair dudes." i use a similar seat of the pants process for sorting stuff like art, lifestyle modes, etc.
- bill 5-26-2005 5:56 am
heres a (not so) quick outline in lieu of actual thinking
this initial sentiment
got me thinking about nihilism which led to metanarratives and this which seemingly echoed Charles Reich:
and then the rest of the day happened without incident.
- dave 5-26-2005 8:22 am
this was a great exhibit, I saw it in NH and a photo does not do it justice; the interactions between the traders and the artists was so much a part of it, how to capture that?
- anonymous (guest) 6-19-2010 6:25 pm
Just word of mouth - stories - thanks.
- tom moody 6-19-2010 7:40 pm