A new exhibition spans just 1,826 days of the counterculture
By S.S.
IN 1968, the Beatles recorded “Revolution”, an explicitly political song expressing disillusionment with how the decade’s protests had become violent. The revolutionary verve of the 1960s—its utopian impulses based on peace and love, on civil, gender and sexual rights—had by 1968 spurred militant factions. The song had two versions. The first, recorded in May, was a blues-inspired shuffle. By July, the Beatles had recorded an electric version with guitar solos howling a deliberately distorted sound. Referring to both protestor and state brutality, John Lennon originally sang the ambiguous lines: “When you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out…in.” By the second, he sang the unequivocal “count me out.”
Revolutionary fervour had turned sour. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated earlier in the year. A spate of protests in America and across Europe resulted in clashes with police. As Lennon sang in Abbey Road studios in May, nearly half a million French students marched through the streets of Paris demanding the fall of Charles de Gaulle’s government, calling for state reform and vehemently asserting sexual freedom. The decade’s chilled-out optimism was coming to a close. Commentators assessing the political and social fallout inevitably asked: had the people won against the Establishment, or had everybody, both state and protestors, lost? Did we need to care, since the world would never be the same again?
“You Say You Want a Revolution: Records and Rebels 1966-1970”, a new show at the Victoria and Albert museum in London, takes us to the heart of these questions. It covers just 1,826 days of the counterculture. This idealistic yet turbulent period is explored in six sections that span across fashion, street protests, drugs, festivals, communes and technology.
As such, the exhibition hosts a broad church. A recreated Carnaby Street, then the heart of swinging London, displays Mary Quant’s mini skirt from the Ginger Group label, an affordable fashion line to celebrate the new trend of youthful easy-to-wear. Around the corner a Dispo paper dress envisages fashion as futuristic, cheap and customisable. Material from the Profumo affair, Stonewall, the Oz trial and first editions (such as Germaine Greer’s “The Female Eunuch”, published in October 1970), emphasise the sexual politics of the decade. Throughout, LSD-fuelled psychedelia makes swirling appearances, either in liquid light show panels that reconstruct the immersive vibe of London’s UFO club, or in the design of graphics, posters and record sleeves. Bubble-lettering, optical art graphics and trippy imagery were visual signposts of a new era of freedom.
The exhibition brings major cultural trends to life. One room, dedicated to the burgeoning commercialism of the 1960s, highlights how design fixated on new materials and the idea of space travel. Eero Aarnio’s plastic globe chair sits near astronaut William Ander’s spacesuit from his 1968 Apollo 8 mission. Innovative travel-inspired products and the exponential growth of TV advertising drove consumers to new heights. A PanAm hostess uniform and a Barclays credit card, launched in Britain in 1966, connect the giddy energy and glamour of living fast and spending faster.
Underpinning it all is music. More than 200 LPs from John Peel’s collection, one of Britain’s most famous DJs, are displayed throughout. Music was the youth’s binding force, its social and cultural capital, galvanising people to political movements and festivals, so it is no surprise that hit tracks guide visitors through scenes and sections. Songs range from Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” to Nina Simone's “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”. Woodstock dominates a section on festivals, reconstructed in a room of faux grass and scattered bean bags. Three screens hanging from the ceiling indulge viewers with recordings of the festival’s best acts that inspired 450,000 people for three days. The intimacy of the footage, the roar of the fans, is visceral.
By embodying the counterculture, the exhibition asks us to examine its impact on the present, to consider what has changed and what hasn’t. Environmental issues remain pressing. So do issues of surveillance and control. The ideological zealotry of 60s protest that saw, within its extremes, violence and self-sacrifice, hints at current Islamist radicalism and its youth’s desire for transcendence. Black politics in America still focuses on the issue that black lives matter.
But visitors are not to leave despondent. In the last room, as John Lennon’s “Imagine” plays, Alan Kay, a legendary American computer scientist, gives us a final instruction: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” This is the most optimistic moment of the exhibition. By looking back, it becomes clear that the decade’s most historic and relevant legacy was its courage, spirit and creativity. Characteristics that remain timeless.
“You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-70” is showing at the V&A until February 26th 2017
