Big Feelings About Bold Colors
REVIEW // Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s is on display at The Portland Art Museum until June 15, 2025
Historically, graphic artists have found themselves to be perceived by the ‘art world’ as outside of it. When it comes to marketing communications in particular, their work is often viewed as inextricable from the products or experiences they are communicating about. As a former advertising creative director who is also an artist, I find this troubling. So when I saw that the Portland Art Museum was opening a show called Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s, I thought, “Fuck yeah,” and yet, I couldn’t get out of the show fast enough.
The interior wall colors (a variety of child-like, saturated, Crayola crayon shades), the spacing and installation of the posters, and the ‘sameness’ of each of the rooms in the exhibit combined to create a dizzying and disappointing effect. It all added up to create a cheap-feeling aesthetic that, rather than elevating the posters to art, actually more deeply positions the posters as not art – as advertisements as easily forgotten as the long-past shows they were promoting.
When planning an exhibit, Charlotte Cosby of Farrow & Ball advises “(their clients) to look at the collection as a whole and decide what reaction they want to elicit from museumgoers and what mood they are looking to create in each space they are planning, as color will have a huge impact on how the guest feels as they experience the exhibition.”1 I can’t imagine the Psychedelic … was designed to elicit headaches or upset stomachs, and it’s exactly this disconnect which led me to determine that the interior paint choices were unlikely informed. Don’t get me wrong —color is fun—but, in this case, in rooms full of already brightly-colored works, it misses the mark.
At several points, the visual vibrations caused by such stark color contrasts combined with the already busy art pieces themselves left me feeling nauseated and unable to seriously consider or enjoy any of the work. Add the fact that the posters are sandwiched between layers of acrylic rather than framed, and hung too closely to one another between layers of sickeningly bright, candy-colored walls, and the overwhelming affect is that this space, and everything within, is un-serious. I found myself feeling overwhelmed, unwell, and wondering, Where the hell is the exit? but I couldn’t figure out how to get out—a function, I think, of the samey-ness of the rooms.
In Color and Light in the Museum Environment, Christopher McGlinchey asserts that “proper lighting (can) optimize the viewer’s ability to see nuances of artist intent” and that improper lighting can cause “eye fatigue.”2 Amy Elizabeth Gorton argues that color has a direct psychological and physical impact on people. Museum wall color, therefore, certainly must have a psychological impact on the museum-goer’s experience and, subsequently, affect how the viewer experiences the art. Red, for example, can lead to a viewer’s “blood pressure and pulse (increasing) greatly.”3 If this is all true, then I believe it stands that wall color and lighting might be the most important choices of all when planning an exhibit. It should be selected in a thoughtful, considered, and scientific manner, and should elevate rather than overshadow or detract from the work.
I couldn’t help but wonder: did the museum actually perceive these posters as art worthy of serious discussion or was the show more of a marketing decision, designed to be an easy hit that got butts in the door? The exhibit was campy and felt overdone—possibly the poor attempt to contrive the affect of a psychedelic fever dream by somebody who had probably never even dropped acid—and gave me the same feeling I get when I go to Mexican restaurants owned by white people who clearly hired a white interior designer to make it seem authentic.
To be clear, I haven’t dropped acid, either. Maybe not getting high prior to seeing the show was my fatal error.
As somebody who truly loves advertising and design and knows how much knowledge is required to do it well—an art background and/or creative writing background, understanding of psychology, and comprehensive knowledge of human behavior and consumerism—I was thrilled for this exhibit. But, once again, I was reminded that advertising is not art—not yet—and as long as that’s the way people see it, it will never be shown in a way that actually gives it the gravitas it deserves. Had these posters been framed and matted (even floating in a frame matte-free would do) and hung against rich neutral shades so the colors and patterns of the posters could shine, the experience would have been wholly different and, I bet, would have sparked some introspection in some of the more curious visitors. Maybe they would have left thinking differently than before about the quality and importance of graphic arts.
I’ve said nothing about the fashion because I barely noticed it. There was so much wild and elaborate fashion happening in the 70s—at least as elaborate as the posters shown—and yet, the most banal textiles and homogenous profiles were chosen.
I would have loved to discover these posters in a coffee table book and perused them, in pajamas, from my home. I also would have loved to have viewed them in an exhibit where they were installed in a more sophisticated manner, in a space that didn’t feel like a sanitized version of an Austin Powers retrospective. The interior choices felt emotionally manipulative, designed to evoke a feeling of drama bigger than the works themselves commanded in their plexiglass sandwiches. In my opinion, Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s isn’t worth leaving the house for and I wish I’d done something else with my Sunday afternoon.
Exhibition.” Architectural Digest, Architectural Digest, 1 Aug. 2017, www.architecturaldigest.com/story/moma-frank-lloyd-wright-paint#:~:text=CC%3A%20For%20me%20the%20backdrop,as%20a%20juxtaposition%20to%20it.
McGlinchey, Christopher. “Color and light in the museum environment.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 51, no. 3, 1993, p. 44, https://doi.org/10.2307/3258777.
Gorton, Amy Elizabeth. Is Wall Color Significant to Museum Visitors?: Exploring the