Cool Medium: Art, Television & Psychedelia, 1960-1980

This exhibition explores the ways in which television’s hypnotic properties intersect with contemporary art.

Drawn primarily from deCordova’s permanent collection, Cool Medium includes painting, photography, and prints that relate to the visual language of the television screen and conditions of mass media culture. Exhibition themes include televisual perception; intersections with psychedelia and spirituality; and freedom and control in a media-saturated society. Some artists used the visual trickery of Op Art to simulate television’s mesmerizing qualities, while others borrowed psychedelic imagery to address issues of mind control and brainwashing associated with television. Other works express paranoia and the loss of self in the face of mass culture. Altogether, these artworks underscore the transfixing visions of many artists during the age of the television.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.