50 YEARS WOODSTOCK - THE EXHIBITION
Over the years, the three-day festival, considered the "mother of all open-airs," became the symbol of a counterculture that stood for anti-militarism, equal rights for women, blacks and homosexuals, for artistic and sexual liberation like no other musical event on the planet. From August 15th-17th, 1969, on a dairy farm near New York, some 500,000 people experienced for three days ??? a communal adventure that marked a turning point in history: At Woodstock, a testament came alive that peaceful, prudent and mindful co-existence is possible even under the most adverse circumstances. This unconditional collective as a will to change forever, in a setting underlined musically by bands and artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, The Who, Santana, Sly & The Family Stone and Joe Cocker, has been with us ever since - whether in the release of Nelson Mandela or the fall of the Berlin Wall - and even in times of the Corona pandemic, the spirit of Woodstock, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019, is more apparent than ever. The emergence of the ''Woodstock Legend" can be explained by its historical classification: 1969 marks the end of the Swinging Sixties, a decade defined by worldwide social change and century occurrences. Highlights such as the first moon landing coincide with the blossoming of an international pop culture but also the Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Che Guevara. With the rise of the civil rights, peace and student movements, the younger generation responded with an unmistakable signal of a strong, common will for change and rethinking, which finally broke through at Woodstock. Since then, the first mega-event in rock history has been considered a blueprint for the peaceful musical message of Love, Peace & Unity, the very "Woodstock Dream" that rapidly embraced the entire globe and continues to resonate profoundly to this day. Photographer Elliott Landy (born 1942) made a significant contribution to visually capturing this "Woodstock Dream" with his epoch-making photographs. As the first artistically recognized music photographer, the U.S. American accompanied stars such as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and The Band on tour early on and was one of the few who were allowed to photograph on stage during the festival. His illustrated books still impress today as documentations of the attitude to life of an entire generation. Landy's big portraits of the "Gods of Rock" are among the absolute highlights of the exhibition, which will take visitors on a tour of four different sections.