Psychedelic: optical and visionary art since the 1960s

Abstract

The history of an aesthetic sensibility that began with Op Art and album covers; with more than seventy-five stunning color images. This eye-popping book offers a visual history of the sensibility. In pop culture, that sensibility is associated with lava lamps, album covers, and teashades, but it first manifested itself in the extreme colors and kaleidoscopic compositions of 1960s Op Artists. The sensibility didn't die at the end of the 1960s; Psychedelic traces it through the day-glo colors of painters Peter Saul, Alex Grey, and Kenny Scharf, the pill and hemp leaf paintings of Fred Tomaselli, the intensified palettes of Douglas Bourgeois and Sharon Ellis, and mixed-media and new media works by younger artists in the new millennium. Although the term psychedelic was coined to describe hallucinatory experiences produced by drugs used psychotherapeutically, the story these images tell is about the influence of culture on the art world-not necessarily the influence of drugs. As contemporary art evolved into a diverse and pluralistic discipline, the evolved into a language of color and light. In Psychedelic, more than seventy-five vivid color images chart this development, exploring the art chronologically, from early Op Art through recent work using digital technology. The book, which accompanies an exhibition organized by the San Antonio Museum of Art, includes three essays that set the works in historical and cultural context. Artists include Isaac Abrams, Albert Alvarez, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Chio Aoshima, Kamrooz Aram, Jeremy Blake, Richie Budd, Gordon Cheung, Judy Chicago, George Cisneros, James Cobb, Steve DiBenedetto, Carole Feuerman, Jack Goldstein, Alex Grey, Peter Halley, Al Held, Mark Hogensen, Constance Lowe, Erik Parker, Ed Paschke, Lari Pittman, Ray Rapp, Deborah Remington, Bridget Riley, Susie Rosmarin, Alex Rubio, Sterling Ruby, Julian Stanczak, Jennifer Steinkamp, Frank Stella, Philip Taaffe, Barbara Takenaga, Fred Tomaselli, Victor Vasarely, Michael Velliquette, Andy Warhol, Robert Williams Essays by David S. Rubin, Robert C. Morgan, Daniel Pinchbeck Copublished with the San Antonio Museum of Art