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Hippies deserve more respect for the way they changed the world, according to a new exhibit at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The show claims much of today's art, media and commerce is rooted in the hippie movement.


 
"Hippie Modernism: The struggle for Utopia" is a trip through a jungle of color, shapes, and sound. The Walker galleries are festooned with posters for concerts and protests, and inflatable furniture. There are films like this one. It shows young men and women in simple white clothes climbing out of their underground home of the future. 

 
"It really was a house for the new golden age," intones a bright young woman's voice, "There were no angry words to be heard there. No violent noises. The music was pleasant and continuous. But there were also long pauses of silence."

 
It's hard to watch without at least grinning. But curator Andrew Blauvelt says it's time to give the hippie movement another look.

 
"What I hope people take away, if you are really young is like, 'Hey, they were crazy and radical in their thinking back then, and why can't we have that today?'"
 

Hippie Modernism covers the counterculture from roughly 1964 to 1974.

 
"It's divided into three parts, he said. "And it's based on the famous saying by Timothy Leary — 'Turn on, tune in, drop out.'" 

 
Blauvelt says the phrase is almost a cliche for the time. But it was also a rallying cry against the status quo of the time. People were looking for new ways of doing things, and Blauvelt says the show is filled with examples of issues still pertinent today.

 
"Pick almost any political or social subject today," Blauvelt says, "Whether that's marijuana legalization, same-sex marriage, the war on women, Black Lives Matter. I mean it could be somewhat depressing to say that none of these issues have been resolved, but the trajectory is definitely from the late 1960s forward."

 
The exhibit shows how hippies looked for ways to turn on by finding alternative realities. Sometimes it was through drugs, but also through art, architecture, music and technology. In the "turning on" section, Blauvelt points out a 1968 photograph of a man wearing what was called Info-Gonks: eyeglasses wired up to television.

 
"It actually presages things like Google Glass," says Blauvelt. "But the main difference being that they were influenced by the discourse of the time which is about television and the educational potential of television so this was kind of a conceptual mock-up."

 
 
The "tuning in" element is represented by the explosion of media, including how screen-printing became a way of mass producing posters for art, commerce, and politics.

 
People also tuned into their planet, rebelling against the mass consumption that was another hallmark of the time. One display shows bottles produced by the Heineken Beer company after a member of the Heineken family saw a beach in Africa covered in trash, including some of his company's bottles. When shortly afterwards he came across a house which had bottles built into the wall, he asked his company's designers to come up with a flattened bottle which could fit together and function as a brick after emptied of its contents.

 
There were new ways of showing images, and creating immersive environments, and the Walker has recreated several of them.

 
Blauvelt steps into a loudly clicking room.

 
"This is called 'The Knowledge Box.'" he says. "What we are in is about a 10 foot square box, a room that you can enter like a chamber. And there's 24 slide projectors and they are projecting images on every surface, so all four walls, the floor and the ceiling. So there are about 350 slides that bombard you over a period of a couple of minutes."

 
In another room psychedelic colors swirl to a rock soundtrack, and in a third people can lie in hammocks while listening to Jimi Hendrix as his image is projected around the walls.


 
 
"Dropping out" meant looking for new ways of living. There are geodesic domes, and inflatable houses. Blauvelt says the exhibit shows how hippie philosophy led to ideas about developing computers, and even a crude representation of the Internet envisioned by architects.

 
"People like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, they were only able to conceive of this idea of personal computing because it was about empowering individuals and their creativity."

 
The show ends with a portable orchard, citrus trees under grow lights, a project by early eco-artists. With the air filled with the scent of the fruits it's an aptly sensuous experience.

 
Blauvelt says he hopes people who lived through the era will bring their grandchildren, and tell them about the social and political upheaval of the time.

 
"And for the younger generation to understand that many of the things they take for granted are by-products of this period."

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A new exhibit at the Walker Art Center claims much of today's art, media and commerce is rooted in the hippie movement.

Exhibit aims to give hippies the respect they deserve

HendrixWar by Neville D'Almeida and Helio Oiticica

Cameron Wittig | Courtesy the Walker Art Center

Euan Kerr | MPR News

Bottles developed by the Heinekin Beer company

Courtesy of the Walker Art Center

Models demonstrated how to use the Superonda Sofa.

Exhibit aims to give hippies the respect they deserve

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