Psychedelic-inspired art by Alex Rubio

Psychedelic: Optical and Visionary Art since the 1960s at the San Antonio Museum of Art: In 1956, Dr. Humphry Osmond coined the term ‘psychedelic’ to refer to hallucinatory experiences produced by the use of drugs during psychotherapeutic practices. Soon, Timothy Leary and the counter-culture’s hippie movement in America advocated “turning on, tuning in, and dropping out” as a means of intentionally seeking an intensified, sensory experience. Additionally, the 1960s saw the advent of color television, fluorescent paints, and the Op Art movement’s experimentation with optical mixing to achieve dazzling color effects; all of which introduced a new visual language of extreme color and kaleidoscopic space into contemporary culture. By the end of the decade, one did not have to consume drugs to encounter a “trip”; the psychedelic aesthetic was experienced with light shows, lava lamps, posters and buttons, record album covers, fashion, and stage design for TV shows such as Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, The Ed Sullivan Show, and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

Although psychedelic culture began to decline by the mid-1970s, one of its legacies is an aesthetic sensibility that has continued to evolve over the years and, more recently, has gained favor in growing numbers among contemporary artists.

For the first time in history, the San Antonio Museum of Art explores and investigates the origins and development of a “psychedelic sensibility” in contemporary art of the past forty years: from Op Art of the early 1960s to the abstract and visionary representations of the present day.

Check after the jump for Lewis Carroll, Malaquais Montoya and Ansen Seale.

Work by Malaquias Montoya

Carroll Through the Looking Glass at Calcasieu Gallery: The Black Light Contingent presents “Carroll Through the Looking Glass,” a presentation of art inspired by the life and work of Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. The Contingent will present several of Carroll’s works including Alice In Wonderland, poetry from his seminal collection, Phantasmagoria, his humorous play Euclid and his Modern Rivals and will highlight interpretations of his work, published under his real name, Charles Ludwig Dodgson, “The Tangled Tale” and “Curiosa Mathematica: A New Theory of Parallels,” the latter a notable excursion into shedding light on some of the work Carroll produced as Head Lecturer at Oxford University. The Black Light Contingent will truly illuminate the manuscripts of Lewis Carroll with their visually stunning ultraviolet exhibit, a presentation of fluorescent work in homage to a literary master who inevitably captured the imagination of generations.

Globalization & War — The Aftermath at The University of Texas at San Antonio Art Gallery (Main Campus): These works by Malaquias Montoya, create a dialogue between viewer and painter, conveying the universal story of the consequences of power and war, which includes peoples of all cultures. This exhibition presents a mirror for viewers to see themselves in portraits that focus on the destruction of people’s existence resulting in the uprooting of their lives, the result of displacement, and the loss of culture caused by corporate globalization and the tragedies of war. In each image, we see the human spirit at its most vulnerable point, in the shadows between obliteration, devastation and survival.

Montoya is a leading figure in the West Coast political Chicano graphic arts movement, a political and socially conscious movement that expresses itself primarily through the mass production of silk-screened posters. Montoya’s works include acrylic paintings, murals, washes, and drawings, but he is primarily known for silkscreen prints, which have been exhibited nationally as well as internationally. He is credited by historians as being one of the founders of the “social serigraphy” movement in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1960s. His visual expressions, art of protest, depict the struggle and strength of humanity and the necessity to unite behind that struggle.

Ansen Seale's "Temporal Form #10"

Celebrating Contemporary Art Month at Bismarck Studios: Included in this exhibition are Ansen Seale’s slit-scan photography, Tim McMean’s combination of the printmaking medium and painting, Billy Keen’s dialog about free will, and Thess Muth’s glitter compositions. Seale’s surreal photographs are especially notable. He captures a photographic view of a three dimensional scene but substitutes one of the axes of the standard three dimensions for the fourth dimension of time. And all using a camera he developed himself!