Sweet Harmony: Rave | Today, Saatchi Gallery - ★★★★☆ - Until September 14, 2019


"Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive. But to be young was very heaven." Every generation produces its own youth counterculture with its own iconography. The be-ins of the 60's still resonate with that generation, and the 80's and 90's produced the rave subculture. But while the impetus and often the modes of expression are parallel (rebellion politics, drugs and music) the zeitgeist is usually quite different. This look at the rave culture offers an insight into how that generation perceived the world it was inheriting and the aspirations for its transformation. Photographs, sound installations and specially commissioned works give us the faces, activities and environments of the era, but they are now bathed in a nostalgia which transforms these representations of experience into a show for both those who were there and for those who want to have a sense of those heady days.

Reviewed by J.C.

 Our Score:  ☆☆☆☆★ 

WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE:
Until September 14, 2019
Mon - Sun: 10 am - 6 pm
Saatchi Gallery
Nearest tube: Sloane Square
https://www.saatchigallery.com/art/sweet_harmony.php
Map & Location: Duke of York's HQ, King's Rd, Chelsea, London SW3 4RY, UK

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