London‘s Saatchi Gallery is bringing PLUR (Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect) to the art world with a new exhibition on rave music, the spaces it flourished in, and the subcultures that surrounded it.
Through visuals and audio immersion, Sweet Harmony tries to capture the zeitgeist of rave culture in the late 1980s and early 1990s, where youths ate ecstasy in old factoriesm warehouses, and underground cellars and danced to the squelchy sounds of machine music. Curator Kobi Prempeh, alongside Saatchi Gallery Director Philly Adams, tapped more than 30 mostly European artists associated with the scene to present photos, video, oral history and classics from regional genres.
House and techno, the two electronic music subcategories most closely associated with raving, were born in the U.S. Midwest in the 1980s but gained mega popularity throughout Europe. Photos by the likes of the late Shaun Bloodworth, a music photographer who documented the UK rave scene, Vinca Petersen, who published a book of rave photos with Gerhard Steidl, and Spiral Tribe’s free party maven/collage artist Seana Gavin capture the wild energy of a youthful subculture that’s undergoing a second flourishing today.
Exhibits will be accompanied by playlists of regional genres—Detroit techno, grime, UK garage.
In adjacent Gallery 10, the curators will display commissioned artwork and sound installations from mechanical sculptor Conrad Shawcross and psychedelic London artist Weirdcore, and others.
Sweet Harmony runs through September 14, and admission is $12.50. More information on tickets and hours of operation can be found here.