Museum psychedelic installations drew crowds that regular shows never attracted.

Evidence

Jonas Mekas felt that he was witnessing the birth of a new religion. Grace Glueck was more skeptical. “The ‘be-in’ isn’t easy to take,” she wrote. “Its light-up paintings, frenetic machines and high decibel noises add up to a kind of programmed pandemonium that seems accurately to reflect the urban US milieu.” Yet the USCO experience was far less assaultive than The Responsive Eye, let alone The Exploding Plastic Inevitable. Most surprised was the Riverside Museum’s staff. While previous shows had been staid and sparsely attended, Be-In attracted numerous young people who took advantage the proximity of Riverside Park to toke up and groove, sometimes for hours, on the gallery. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 879

Categorization

• XREF: Evidence of novelty-drawing audiences, connects to the deterioration-in-cultural-institutions shelves being tested.