2017 marks the 50th Anniversary of San Francisco’s legendary Summer of Love- a time when up to 100,000 young people from around the country converged in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, drawn by the hippie movement and the growing counter-culture. It was a year when music, culture, drugs, arts, politics, and community were drastically changing from traditional norms. The period is marked by groundbreaking developments in art, fashion, music, and politics- psychedelic rock bands, iconic poster artists, freethinking fashion designers, and cultural activists determined to bring change were all integral parts of the movement happening in the Bay Area. As the San Francisco Oracle wrote in 1967, “A new concept of celebrations beneath the human underground must emerge, become conscious, and be shared, so a revolution can be formed with a renaissance of compassion, awareness, and love, and the revelation of unity for all mankind.”
In celebration and remembrance of this incredible social phenomena known as The Summer of Love, San Francisco’s de Young Museum presented an exhibition titled The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock and Roll. The exhibition ran from April 8th-August 20th, 2017 and was intended to “commemorate an “only in San Francisco” social and aesthetic movement, and… remind museum visitors that in a time of international upheaval, the city played a vital role in changing society and amplifying the pulse of the nation.”. The exhibit featured more than 300 significant cultural artifacts of the time, including iconic rock posters, photographs, interactive music and light shows, costumes and textiles, ephemera, and avant-garde films. POW Magazine Founder Dennis Gonzales and POW writer Sheena Salazar took a trip to de Young museum on the final day of the exhibition, and found the spirit of the Summer of Love still alive and well.
Several of the museum goers were seniors who had been part of the Summer of Love, bringing their children and grandchildren and showing them photos of their younger selves being displayed as part of the exhibit. A documentary crew, making a film about love, talked to Dennis about what love means and how we should spread it. An entire room of the exhibit was a dedicated psych-out space, with a large open space for dancing, bean bags lining the walls, and psychedelic visuals being projected onto the walls and ceiling. By the end of the afternoon, a crowd of people of all ages had gathered in the room to dance. Another room of the exhibit was completely wallpapered, ceiling included, with Bay Area rock posters from the ’60s.
View the full gallery of photos from POW’s visit here: Full Gallery
For those who missed the exhibition, the de Young museum has put together a digital museum experience, full of videos, audio commentary, photos of all the exhibition pieces, along with tons of background information about the Summer of Love. You can check out the digital museum experience here: https://digitalstories.famsf.org/summer-of-love
The de Young Museum has also shared a link to their Google Photos, where you can view HD images of all of the pieces that were featured at the exhibit: View Summer of Love Gallery
Written By Sheena Salazar for POW Magazine
sheenacheyennesalazar@gmail.com
