Psychedelic Optical and Visionary Art Since the 1960s

This eye-popping book offers a visual history of the psychedelic sensibility. In popculture, 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 OpArtists. The psychedelic sensibility didn't die at the end of the 1960s; Psychedelic traces itthrough the day-glo colors of painters Peter Saul, Alex Grey, and Kenny Scharf, the pill and hempleaf 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 usedpsychotherapeutically, the story these images tell is about the influence of psychedelic culture onthe art world--not necessarily the influence of drugs. As contemporary art evolved into a diverseand pluralistic discipline, the psychedelic evolved into a language of color and light. InPsychedelic, more than seventy-five vivid color images chart this development, exploring the artchronologically, from early Op Art through recent work using digital technology. The book, whichaccompanies an exhibition organized by the San Antonio Museum of Art, includes three essays that setthe works in historical and cultural context.