fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Submit Your Event
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Send Letter to the Editor
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

Bethel Woods explores cashing in on the counterculture

by Jeremiah Horrigan
April 24, 2017
in Art & Music
0
Bethel Woods explores cashing in on the counterculture

“Some Kind of Radio” Transistor Radio, ca. 1970, Manufacturer unknown, Hong Kong Printed leather cover Michael Stern Collection, L2017.1.x.

“Beatles” Hair Spray, 1964, Bronson Products Company, Inc., Chicago, Illinois, Metal, plastic, paper label, Michael Stern Collection, L2017.1.x.

For some, it was a beginning, a declaration of independence for a new “nation” that the straight world could neither ignore nor deny.

For many, many others, life-long members of that straight world, the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival was less a threat than an irresistible opportunity to cash in the burgeoning “youth culture,” an opportunity which they gladly took.

The points at which these antagonistic cultural streams met and mingled is the subject of a warm and richly detailed exhibit called “Love for Sale: The Commercialization of the Counterculture” at the Special Exhibit Gallery of the Museum at Bethel Woods.

Could there be a more fitting site for such a show? Bethel Woods — nobody’s idea of a Woodstockian “free” institution — wouldn’t exist but for the mud-caked, dope-driven festival that seized the world’s attention in 1969.

Understandably, the exhibit doesn’t explore such then-and-now ironies. But what it does do quite successfully is show how the twin streams of American capitalism and American bohemianism (harkening back to the Beats) have flowed in and out of each other’s respective domains well before Max Yasgur said “yes” to a couple of land-desperate hippie-styled entrepreneurs. It does so with extensive texts by curator Jill Silos-Rooney that accompany large and small examples of the cheesy and the sophisticated means of appropriation that goes back to the mid-1950s.

Silos-Rooney identifies the confluence of post-war American affluence with the startling “discovery” by corporate America of Elvis Presley and later, the Beatles. Music was just the starting point for corporations large and small, efforts sophisticated and cheesy. Baby boomers, the offspring of “square” America, were a new and lucrative demographic; kids looking for places to spend their “disposable income” found a friend in Mad Ave., which was only too happy to accommodate their needs.

Silos-Rooney’s historical research is posted on the exhibit’s walls alongside more than 200 artifacts, most of which are displayed like long-lost relics from another age.

There you’ll find (courtesy of pop culture collector Michael Stern) pristine examples of the pop culture’s Age of Cheese — a Beatle wig (and Beatle hair spray), a cardboard rack of Monkeeshades (cheapo pince nez sunglasses) and plastic figurines of the Fab Four in both pre- and post-Sgt. Pepper regalia.

Larger, cringe-inducing examples of Mad Ave’s efforts to cash in on the counterculture dominate the wall space: a ten-foot high billboard detail of a grinning, badly be-wigged Jonathan Winters flashing the peace sign and promising how “the new Savin really freaks out fatcat copiers.” Also in evidence are Peter Max-style illustrations on behalf of such super-cool products as Campbell’s Soup and Seven-Up.

But where the exhibit really shines is in its re-creation of a typical habitat for the American nuclear family of 1970 — living room, dining room, and boy’s and girl’s bedrooms. Sister’s got 45s splashed on the floor and a Princess phone next to her bed; brother’s got some anti-war posters and a wall-mounted stereo speaker. His bed is made, his underwear nowhere to be seen, which may be the exhibit’s only false notes.

There’s another room that speaks volumes — the Black Light Room, covered floor to ceiling with psychedelic posters. Is it apogee or nadir, the symbolic height of countercultural creativity or its commercial death knell? The exhibit isn’t built to answer such questions, only to add to our appreciation of what was going on back when helicopters could still be mistaken for butterflies.

When I entered the Black Light Room, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were singing “Deja Vu,” giving new resonance to the chorus that says “we have all been here before.” That much, at least, is something aging hippies and the men who co-opted them can all agree on.

“Love for Sale: The Commercialism of the Counterculture,” will be display at the Special Exhibit Gallery at Bethel Woods through December 31. The special exhibit is included in the price of admission to the Main Exhibit, or five dollars to view it separately.

Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher

Jeremiah Horrigan

Related Posts

O+ Festival announces headliners for 2025
Art & Music

O+ Festival announces headliners for 2025

July 7, 2025
Rupco marks 35 years of providing shelter
Art & Music

Summertide celebrates Lace Mill’s 10-year anniversary with art and music

July 4, 2025
Todd Rundgren returns to Bearsville celebrating enduring music career
Art & Music

Todd Rundgren returns to Bearsville celebrating enduring music career

July 3, 2025
Dual exhibits open at Wired Gallery this Saturday
Art & Music

Dual exhibits open at Wired Gallery this Saturday

July 3, 2025
’Tis the season for outdoor art
Art & Music

’Tis the season for outdoor art

June 28, 2025
Baroque minimalism on display at Kinderhook reception this Saturday
Art & Music

Baroque minimalism on display at Kinderhook reception this Saturday

June 27, 2025
Next Post
Saugerties galleries plan a month of sculpture

Saugerties galleries plan a month of sculpture

Weather

Kingston, NY
77°
Partly Cloudy
5:28 am8:34 pm EDT
Feels like: 77°F
Wind: 0mph E
Humidity: 81%
Pressure: 29.94"Hg
UV index: 0
ThuFriSat
84°F / 68°F
88°F / 68°F
88°F / 68°F
Kingston, NY weather forecast ▸

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Art
    • Books
    • Kids
    • Lifestyle & Wellness
    • Food & Drink
    • Music
    • Nature
    • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Subscribe to Our Newsletters
    • Hey Kingston
    • New Paltz Times
    • Woodstock Times
    • Week in Review

© 2022 Ulster Publishing