For a generation who has no connection to the sixties the installation leaves you feeling a little empty, in essence observing the aftermath of a party you??ve only vaguely heard about but to which you were never invited. The obsession with the sixties is somewhat lost of the masses of youth today, the message never filtered down. By staging a retrospective it brings up all the issues associated with a generation who has not yet come together to create a movement. Blame it on the long tail or perhaps plain old complacency.
It was a time that, although fleeting, has evolved into a holy event for some and for others, the pychedelic era merely produced some really great posters. Regardless of how you feel about the Summer of Love, its hard to dispute the cultural and aesthetic impacts it had on popular culture. The New York Times recently wrote about the retrospective and the brand that is the Summer of Love. In it they spoke about the fascination of generation who remembers the idea and movement of the sixties. The generational disconnect seems to have diminished the power of the brand to inspire those of us that came of age long after the psychedelic era ended
Thus, the Summer of Love 2007 version will be seen and experienced in a myriad of ways this summer; Act II if you will. It will be seen on the cover of a special Rolling Stone issue, a 3-day Summer of Love party in Las Vegas, and a reproduction of Hair in Central Park.
The New York Times describes the vast difference between the past and the present incarnations of the Summer of Love thusly:
??In contrast to the first time around, this summer??s activities will be spectator events, not participatory ones, replaying the Summer of Love as something you watch, not something you do. There will be comfortable seating and refreshments. And though there will likely be references to the current war, the art will still be fighting the last one, reflecting the songs and sensibilities not of the Iraq grunts?? generation but of their parents.?
Not entirely surprising given how strong a part of the cultural/commercial nexus hippie culture has become, but the development of such a meaningful cultural phenomenon into a ??brand? and the ways in which the nostalgia for that era manages to upend the daring and inventiveness that defined the Summer of Love is truly fascinating
Amy Daroukakis for EMERGE
Poster art of the Summer of Love
"Whoa, this is some pretty good stuff, man"
"Groovy Lady"
PS: check out EMERGE's oh-so-prescient prediction for 2007 from PSFK's 2006 end-of-the-year future trends round up here
