Comments on: Are San Francisco Artists Still Just a Bunch of Liberal Hippie, Left-Wing Drug Addicts and Alcoholics that Hate America?

By: Santiago Gervasi

Santiago Gervasi — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:03:53 +0000

So artists in New York don’t do drugs, don’t drink alcohol and are very conservative and patriotic? (Not the NY artists I’ve met)
And what is wrong with left wing drug addicted, alcoholic hippie artists that hate America? I’ll take that any time over right wing, racist, fascist, patriotic, moralistic christian artists, or even “liberal” middle class artists who swing ten degrees to the left of center in good times and ten degrees to the right of center if it affect them personally, and who love minorities as long as they don’t move next door (thank you Phil Ochs for those great lines).
Besides, the Hippie movement was not exclusive to California or the Bay Area, it also happened in New York and many other cities around the US and the globe. In the US the Hippie movement was a sort of renaissance, where US culture opened up to new ideas, foreign philosophies and religions, and goals of peace, love and freedom, as a reaction to the conservative, stagnant, repressive, racist, multi-phobic culture that had permeated US society all along. An the art of those times reflected these new ideologies.
During the 80′s a government sponsored movement lead by R. Reagan was started to turn the US back into a right wing, prejudist, racist, ignorant, oppressive society (and they apparently succeeded), and one of the main targets was the Hippie movement, which naturally stood against the goals of the government. Thus the Hippie movement was discredited and the word Hippie was made synonymous of empty decadence, ignoring all the tremendously important changes and contributions that this movement brought to the US.
We should also keep in mind that the majority of artists throughout history have traditionally lived alternative life styles, rebelling against the establishment and criticizing their governments, and drugs have been a part of the artistic scene as long as there have been artists.
So instead of apologizing for being drug-addicted left wing Hippie artists, we should turn around and criticize an art world that has become materialistic, conservative, frivolous, elitist and empty of social relevance.

By: Chris Cobb

Chris Cobb — Sat, 21 May 2011 22:45:06 +0000

Connie, I think you’ve done as much as anyone to put the Bay Area on the map! It was hard for me to leave out the many, many fantastic works and films and events that shaped Bay Area art culture…I’ll bet a lot of them will be in your show though. Any plans to send ‘State of Mind’ back east?

By: connie lewallen

connie lewallen — Sat, 21 May 2011 01:02:07 +0000

Chris is right; the Bay Area has yet to be taken seriously, especially considering the ground breaking work done here in the late sixties and early seventies. Stay tuned for State of Mind: New California Art ca. 1970, an exhibition I am co-curating with Karen Moss that opens at the Orange County Museum of Art on October 9th, 2011 and travels to the UC Berkeley Art Museum in late February 2012. We hope that this show that features over 50 artists and its accompanying catalog will be a revelation.

By: Chris Cobb

Chris Cobb — Mon, 16 May 2011 02:24:29 +0000

Part of the difference, at least in my mind, is that the East Coast had more of an established academy that the artists were responding to/against. There was also just more money back east and a market for art. The major art magazines were all in New York as well, so the dialog was much different. That’s my take. Apples and oranges. Artists in California have always known that eventually they would have to go to New York. As far as I know it’s never been the other way around.

By: Francesca

Francesca — Sun, 15 May 2011 23:43:00 +0000

When the Lower East Side scene in NY experimented with non-commercial, radical art practices in the 60′s, it was considered the epitome of art– so what is the difference between that and the non-commercial, radical art practices in San Francisco? It is the artists working on the edges of society that generate the kind of authenticity that reflects the time they live in.