Hanover—The Hood Museum of Art presents High Society: Psychedelic Rock Posters of Haight-Ashbury, treating visitors to the largest survey of psychedelic rock posters organized in twenty-five years. The exhibition presents selections from the extensive collection of Paul Prince who has been collecting psychedelic graphic design for more than thirty years. Featured in the show are important examples by each of the "Big Five" artists of psychedelic poster design: Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, and Alton Kelley. These works, intended to serve as ephemeral street advertisements, present a unique opportunity to observe the evolution of a psychedelic art form during a turning point in American consciousness.

Organized by the San Diego Museum of Art, High Society will be on view at the Hood from March 26 through May 19, 2002. An opening lecture on Saturday, April 6 at 4:00 pm will feature cultural historian Jay Stevens, author of Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream. A reception hosted by the Friends of Hopkins Center and Hood of Museum of Art will follow.

Created at the height of the Haight-Ashbury music scene in the late1960s, the posters of High Society have become iconic images of this memorable era in American culture. The majority of these posters served to promote the frequent dance concerts held in San Francisco's fabled Fillmore and Avalon Ballrooms from 1965 to 1971 that frequently featured bands such as Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, Jefferson Airplane, and Big Brother and the Holding Company, all of which emerged from the local "hippie" community blossoming in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. These concert experiences were multifaceted events often featuring "light shows" created in situ by luminary artists who mixed color oil with water to produce swirling, ameoba-shaped forms that were projected onto the walls, the experience of which was often enhanced by the use of psychotropic drugs. Breaking long-established conventions of graphic design with their twisting, melting, and distorted forms, psychedelic artists conveyed the ambience and spirit of the dance concert experience.

A small focus in the exhibition utilizes the Hood's collection of bold and colorful art nouveau posters of the 1890s to demonstrate their direct influence on many of the psychedelic posters of the 1960s. Several influential artists including Alphonse Marie Mucha in France, Aubrey Beardsley in England, and William Bradley in America were major practitioners of the emerging art nouveau style which utilized the curving lines and distorted lettering that later influenced the psychedelic poster artists. Graphic artists of the 1960s often used these elements in their posters, sometimes adopting imagery directly from art nouveau advertisements and altering only the color, wording, and layout of the original design.

High Society is an ambitious exhibition that reexamines popular advertisements of a key moment in the history of American culture. It presents a unique opportunity to witness the journey of commercial graphic art from ephemera to fine art.