Clark Richert, View of Drop City, “The Complex” in El Morro, outside Trinidad, CO, Circa 1966. courtesy of Walker Art CenterHippie Modernism: The Struggle For Utopia
Curated by Andrew Blauvelt
Walker Art Center [link]
Minneapolis, Minnesota
October 24, 2015 – February 28, 2016
“Hippie Modernism” offers an engaging combination of sociopolitical, economic and aesthetic inquiries of the 1960’s and 70’s without the pejorative use of terms. Pragmatic, intuitive and political methodologies for a new age include perception-shifting headgear, inflatable architecture, temporary cities on islands, educational literature, “truckitecture”, and negative utopias. Heineken developed bottles for building materials and Info-Gonks were 1968’s Google Glass. The exhibition demonstrates with prescient physicality the creative, freethinking nature often dismissed as a “hippie pipe-dream.” As evidenced in overwhelming detail at the Walker, the era’s core values are still a driving force in current politics, architecture, art, and design.
~ Jake Weigel
images courtesy of Walker Art Center
Haus-Rucker-Co (Gunter Zamp Kelp, Klaus Pinter, and Laurids Ortner), “Environment Transformer / Flyhead”, 1968. courtesy of Walker Art Center