Through August 20 at the de Young
The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll at the de Young in Golden Gate Park commemorates an “only in San Francisco” social and aesthetic movement whose influences still surround us today, from fashion to music and so much more. We first told you about the exhibit in early April, right before the opening, but we love it so much that we had to revisit it again, especially now that we are in the heart of the Summer of Love 50th Anniversary celebrations.
Rock posters featured in the exhibit inspired our cover and the large image at the center of these two pages. Both offer viewers a drug-free mind trip. We invite you to look closely at the psychedelic images, which may cause optical illusion movement. Poster artists during the late 1960s utilized similar techniques when advertising some of the hottest bands of the time.
In terms of fashion, distinctive styles of dress set members of the Bay Area counterculture apart from mainstream America. Local designers began to create fantastic looks using a range of techniques and materials, including leatherwork, hand-painting, knitting and crotchet, embroidery, repurposed denim, and tie-dye. Note how these artists wove multiple cultural elements from around the globe into their wearable art.
Fashion is just one highlight at the de Young exhibit. We appreciate how the rooms flow, allowing visitors to savor interactive music and light shows, a section that is plastered from top to bottom with the aforementioned rock posters, and a near-empty room with inviting fuzzy bean bag chairs that compel museum-goers to sit down, connect with friends and enjoy the most excellent music piped into the space. That’s just for a start.
If you have seen the exhibit already, check out one of the many related events scheduled at the museum in the weeks to come. (https://deyoung.famsf.org/summer-love-art-fashion-and-rock-roll) If you haven’t been yet, go! Like summer itself, exhibits such as this are fleeting pleasures. To everything there is a season, as The Birds sang, so before you know it, the museum, city, and planet itself will have turn, turn, turned to another proverbial page in time.
deyoungmuseum.org | @deyoungmuseum
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