Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia

This Walker-organized exhibition, assembled with the assistance of the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, examines the intersections of art, architecture, and design with the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. A time of great upheaval, this period witnessed a variety of radical experiments that challenged societal and professional expectations, overturned traditional hierarchies, explored new media and materials, and formed alternative communities and new ways of living and working together. During this key moment, many artists, architects, and designers individually and collectively began a search for a new kind of utopia, whether technological, ecological, or political, and with it offered a critique of the existing society.

Loosely organized around Timothy Leary’s famous mantra, “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out,” the exhibition charts the evolution of the period, from pharmacological, technological, and spiritual means to expand consciousness and alter one’s perception of reality, to the foment of a publishing revolution that sought to create new networks of like-minded people and raise popular awareness to some of the era’s greatest social and political struggles, to new ways of refusing mainstream society in favor of ecological awareness, the democratization of tools and technologies, and a more communal survival.

Presenting a broad range of art forms and artifacts of the era, Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia features experimental furniture, alternative living structures, immersive and participatory media environments, alternative publishing and ephemera, and experimental film. Bringing into dramatic relief the limits of Western society’s progress, the exhibition explores one of the most vibrant and inventive periods of the not-too-distant past, one that still resonates within culture today.

Curator: Andrew Blauvelt

Special Walker After Hours Preview Party
Friday, October 23rd 9PM - Midnight
"Drop out of your Friday night routine and in to Walker After Hours. This late-night party will be a mind-expanding experience. Turn on to the neo-psychedelic rock of Magic Castles, experience your phantasmic self in our Mylar photo booth, and satisfy your munchies in 1960s style. Groove to of-the-era records spun by West Bank Boogie author Cyn Collins. Tune in to the radical art and design of the counterculture or make your own alternate reality."

Tickets are $30 ($20 for Walker Members)
Click here for more information about the Preview Party to to buy tickets
 

Opening-Day Panel: Hippie Modernism
Saturday, October 24th 2PM
Join exhibition curator Andrew Blauvelt for an overview of the exhibition’s themes and ideas. He will be joined by professors Greg Castillo (UC Berkeley), moderator Ross Elfline (Carleton College), Simon Sadler (UC Davis), and Felicity Scott (Columbia University)—noted scholars on the countercultural production of the period and contributors to the exhibition catalogue—for presentations, a panel discussion, and an audience Q&A.

Tickets: $10 ($8 for Walker Members)
More info on the Discussion and to buy tickets