Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia opening October 24 at Walker Art Center
MINNEAPOLIS, October 12 2015—The Walker Art Center is pleased to present Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia, a traveling exhibition that examines the intersections of art, architecture, and design of the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s on view October 24, 2015 through February 28, 2016 in Galleries 1, 2, 3, and the Perlman Gallery. An After Hours preview party takes place October 23, with opening events including film screenings, artist talks, and a panel discussion scheduled for October 24-25.
Organized by the Walker with the assistance of the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the exhibition charts the evolution of one of the most fertile periods of recent cultural history that witnessed a variety of radical experiments that challenged convention, overturned traditional hierarchies, explored new media and materials, and formed alternative communities with new ways of living and working together. Many artists, architects, and designers began a search for a new kind of utopia—technical, ecological, political—and with it offered a critique of society.
Loosely assembled around Timothy Leary’s famous mantra, “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out,” Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia features a variety of art forms and artifacts, from experimental furniture to alternative living structures, immersive environments, media installations, alternative magazines, experimental books, printed ephemera, and archival films.
Following the Walker’s presentation, Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia will travel to the Cranbrook Art Museum and the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
Walker Art Center
Press Contact: Meredith Kessler, Meredith.Kessler@walkerart.org, 612.375.7651