The Pope smoked Dope.
The Pope Smoked Dope
Author of the project: Zdenek Primus
Author of the project: Zdenek Primus
The exhibition projectThe Pope Smoked Dope introduces beat and rock music and its influence on graphic design of the years 1962 -1972. For the young generation of that era it was the music which was co-creating the sensing of life and influencing even their opinion. That is why it was important to pursue mainly with the endeavour in visualisation of music and of the feeling of music on posters and music record covers. The strongest was the so called psychedelic style in the years 1966 – 1967. It was right then, when also from the art-historical point of view something entirely new was created. In reality everything had started with The Beatles but the psychedelic wave which affected the whole world, just like the beat music did before, evolved in San Francisco on posters of rock dance concerts in Filmore West Family Dog Production.
Regarding the fact, that the psychedelic wave was carried in the sign of light drugs like marihuana but also LSD (which was at first legal) it is completely natural, that from it derives the title of the exhibition. It is a slightly changed title of a song and a gramophone record by David Peel.
Exhibited are psychedelic posters from San Francisco, rock posters from Czech and foreign proveniences, covers of gramophone records are marked out by clear artistic opinion, or also record covers which played a key role in the development of music, further rock magazines from USA, Great Britain and from Czechoslovakia, magazines creating opinion like the American Oracle, English OZ, German Twen, mainly though Mladý svět in which the visitors can read authentic articles about the development of both – the Czech society and world development from the point of view of the liberalising itself and later after the year 1970 again closing socialistic society.
At the exhibition you can see books and brochures dealing with music, hippie culture, drugs, first space flights but also problems with civilisation character e.g. war in Vietnam, “revolutionary” year 1968 and so on.
The exhibition is also not lacking multiples with musical content or pop-art graphic prints reflecting feelings of a young person in a big city.
Regarding the fact, that the psychedelic wave was carried in the sign of light drugs like marihuana but also LSD (which was at first legal) it is completely natural, that from it derives the title of the exhibition. It is a slightly changed title of a song and a gramophone record by David Peel.
Exhibited are psychedelic posters from San Francisco, rock posters from Czech and foreign proveniences, covers of gramophone records are marked out by clear artistic opinion, or also record covers which played a key role in the development of music, further rock magazines from USA, Great Britain and from Czechoslovakia, magazines creating opinion like the American Oracle, English OZ, German Twen, mainly though Mladý svět in which the visitors can read authentic articles about the development of both – the Czech society and world development from the point of view of the liberalising itself and later after the year 1970 again closing socialistic society.
At the exhibition you can see books and brochures dealing with music, hippie culture, drugs, first space flights but also problems with civilisation character e.g. war in Vietnam, “revolutionary” year 1968 and so on.
The exhibition is also not lacking multiples with musical content or pop-art graphic prints reflecting feelings of a young person in a big city.
The exhibition was already presented in the Gallery of the Capital Prague, City Gallery of Brno, in the East – Czech Gallery in Pardubice and in the Regional Gallery in Jihlava.
The catalogue to the project has 110 pages, 130 coloured reproductions, stickers and it is covered into a double sided poster. It was awarded as the most beautiful catalogue of the year 2005 in the Czech Republic.