This Friday, a major British art institution will devote ten of its huge rooms to rave culture and the artists that have been inspired by it…
‘SWEET HARMONY Rave / Today’ opens July 12 at the Saatchi Gallery.
It will be ‘an immersive retrospective exhibition devoted to presenting a revolutionary survey of rave culture through the voices and lenses of those who experienced it.’
It “will recapture the new world that emerged from the acid house scene” presenting the photographers, film-makers and artists who have documented and taken inspiration from myriad rave scenes down the decades and right up to the present day.
It will feature a huge range of artists including Ewen Spencer, Matthew Smith, Molly Macindoe, Tom Hunter, Vinca Petersen, Ted Polhemus, Jeremy Deller, Derek Ridgers, Seana Gavin, Lost Souls Of Saturn (aka Seth Troxler and Phil Moffa), James Alec Hardy, Mustafa Halusi, Conrad Shawcross and many more, with curatorial nous from Kobi Prempeh.
As for my involvement? Well, my interview in the accompanying coffee table book is illustrated by the works of four of my favourite photographers Lee Baxter, Daniel Newman, Lou Rhodes and Andrew Aitch. Who’d have thought those four pictures would find their way to the #SaatchiGallery, eh?
Sweet Harmony – Rave Today runs from Friday 12th of July until the 14th of September.