“500 See Psychedelic Art at Free Americans Gallery”
by Lionel O'Lay
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| Free Americans Gallery of Art sign. Still from Mondo Hollywood (1967). |
Edward Lewis is a young black panther of a man who, at the
ripe ago of twenty-three, has personally investigated the relative merits and
charms of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Communist Party, the prize ring, and
nearly all of the many correctional facilities we have in our port of the state
for the caring for and shaping of our wayward youth.
About eighteen months ago, with some significant directional
impetus provided by the psychedelic chemicals, he decided to forego all
factions and just join the human race. The results have proved to be a welcome
addition to its sadly depleted ranks, and last Sunday he opened his own Art
Gallery in Topanga Canyon with a group show called "The Psychedelic
Viewpoint.”
The show features the work of some of the meat gifted
artists currently active whose subject matter has dramatically evolved as a
result of their experiments with LSD and the other psychedelics. it is a mixed
bag of a show, all of it extremely interesting, ranging from the firm and
boldly executed primitivism of Ed Lewis himself to the technically accomplished
and clearly envisioned works of Burt Shonberg, Michael Green, and Fred Adams,
whose Hieronymus Bosch-like orgiastic scenes continue to yield layers of vision
hour after hour.
The advertised main course was Richard Alpert, a Harvard psychology
professor on permanent leave, who, the previous Wednesday night had spoken to a
turn-away crowd of intensely interested and interesting people, where he
mentioned that he would indeed be in Topanga for the opening. And indeed he
was. The setting was California Sherwood forest, a dried river bank whose
grassy banks and overhanging elms provided perch and comfort for several
hundred who kept churchmouse still to catch his unamplified words before they
escaped on the breeze.
Alpert, pretty well exhausted after four incredible days here of meeting the local contingent of fellow travelers, stood on a rock, holding a sprig of wood roses for support. (He didn't say, but I think it is to remind him, when his fancies glow white, that nature is the only boss.)
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| Richard Alpert speaks on "The Psychedelic Viewpoint.” Still from Mondo Hollywood (1967). |
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| The crowd listens. Still from Mondo Hollywood (1967). |
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| Alpert under the trees outside. Photo by Sharon Allen. |
The crowd, appreciative though less wildly partisan than at
his lectures, had the same astounding cross section of people pursuing the
psychedelic riddle, from young Prince Valiant, himself a painter of astounding
technical skill and untrammelled vision, all the way to two school teacher
spinsters from Arcadia who had reason to believe that LSD got rid of the pains
in their necks and wanted to push it a bit farther.
Vito, the sculptor and rebel chieftain, was there with his
motley band and his beautiful three year old son Godot. He suffered Alpert's
words for the better part of the afternoon and finally exploded as only he can,
accusing Alpert and the rest of the people who preach psychedelics of, by
implication and extension, condoning the reported use of drugs for soldiers in
Vietnam which reportedly remove their guilt about having to slaughter women and
children.
Certainly a valid point, if true, for it is not inconceivable
that medical science, with their modern equivalent of Nazi doctor mentality, is
working on just such substances even as I write and you read. What is
inconceivable, however, is the notion that the psychedelics (by which I am
speaking of both the inorganic—LSD, DMT, mescaline, psilocybin, etc., and the
organic—peyote, the mushrooms, morning glory seeds and such like) could ever be
used for such purposes, for the very root of their effect is to point out the
clear insanity of such behavior.
Methinks the shoe pinches Vito in another place. His
near-hysterical rejection of all such drugs has to do with the loss of ego that
such an experience does involve, and his own inability to picture a Vito without
an ego. (As that Chinese sage Ah Fong was heard to mutter to Harrison Carroll,
who printed it as a blind item: The Way in is The Way Out.)
But seriously: Vito’s point, heartfelt and well meant, was
that in times of crisis, like these, we need all our wits about us, for our
enemies—you may be sure—have theirs. Alpert’s contention, if I understand him
correctly, and Timothy Leary’s also, is roughly, that the times of crisis are
only an illusion in that a large portion of mankind have ALWAYS lived in a time
of crisis, that the job of the individual is to first and foremost develop his
own full personality, realize his own greatest potential for human being- hood,
and in that way he is making the world better by one.
This is not to say it is pointless and futile to continue to
agitate against American foreign policy, or to be an ongoing part of the other
revolutions that are taking place: merely that it must all be viewed with a
different lens,—some would say, a clearer lens.
My own answer to Vito is contained in what I have come to
believe are the three heaviest sentences penned by Western man. They come from
the Talmud, and for me formulate the root core of the psychedelic experience.
The sentences together say it all as well as Beethoven’s Ninth, and you must
pause between them or lose it. They are: If I am not for myself, who will be
for me? If I am for myself alone, what am I? If not now, when?
The art show itself, and the very existence of the Free
Americans Gallery as a permanent home for such happenings (in addition to
proving again the drawing power of the subject) is simply proof that the
psychedelics liberate energy, and that all it craves to become excitingly
creative is POSSIBILITIES.
Lewis will continue the show until September 25, and be open
from ten to six, Sundays included. Admission is free, but contributions will be
appreciated. After the 25th he will close and prepare for his next opening,
which will likewise feature opening-day appearances by some of the many
luminaries interested in perpetuating both Mr. Lewis and his gallery.
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| Richard Klix painting inside. Photo by Sharon Allen. |
THE PSYCHEDELIC VIEWPOINT, an exhibit of psychedelic art.
Free Americans Gallery, 252 Old Topanga Canyon Rd., Topanga, Calif., Thurs.-Mon.
10-4 & 6:30-10 pm.
