Museum Night

Turn on, tune in, drop out. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. Miniskirts, hip-huggers and bell-bottoms de rigueur. Dust off your Shisa or drop a tab of LSD. Jump into your Volkswagen bus and go down to de Appel. And let it roll, cat! Because Museum Night in de Appel arts centre is entirely under the sign of the Age of Aquarius! In the exhibition When Elephants Come Marching In, Echoes of the Sixties in Art Today contemporary artists show how they reactivate the legacy of the 1960s. They reveal how ideas can fascinate us just as much as sensory experience. Far out!

The 1960s were a stormy period of protest and activism, the quest for liberation, drug experimentation, a return to nature, and young people taking to the barricades. Free your mind and your ass will follow! Artists of all sorts critiqued materialism and the neglect of spiritual values. One sees that again in art that is being produced today. In the exhibition a dozen artists give new meaning to subjects from that tumultuous period: mind-expanding substances, resistance to the status quo, artistic hallucinations, engagement, getting back to nature, and the possibility of changing yourself and the world.

During the Museum Night you could imagine yourself stepping back in time. Inspired by the liquid projection technique from the 1970s, with his work Purple Haze In My Brain Meeus van Dis transforms the ground floor of the Apple into a visual psychedelic trip. Once, in the late 1960s when it was known as Fantasio, one of the first pop temples of Amsterdam, Pink Floyd and Jefferson Airplane performed at de Appel. The mobile DJs, "The Neighbours", will move through the building playing the music of that era on request, from Jacco Gardner to Jimi Hendrix. And the Tender Falcons will play folk electropop in the exhibition spaces.

From the autumn of 1969 to 1992 de Appel was De Kosmos, the most important spiritual and New Age centre in The Netherlands. It was a Mecca for visitors who wanted to explore the depths and expanses of the mind, while enjoying cups of herbal tea. With barefoot disco, and a sauna in the back yard. During Museum Night de Appel reaches back to this period too. Immerse yourself in a spiritual experience. Roll out your yoga mat and experience the healing effects of contemporary art. You will leave the building reborn.

Inspired by the liquid projection technique from the 1970s, with his work Purple Haze In My Brain Meeus van Dis transforms the ground floor of the Apple into a visual psychedelic trip.

Library
In the library you can listen to the stories and myths from the history of the building, from tobacco to seamen, through socialism to drugs, mysticism and pop music.

Moes
And should all these '60s experiences give you the munchies, you can always indulge in the sensual and mind-expanding offerings in Moes, the restaurant in the souterrain of de Appel arts centre.

MOre information and ticketsale: http://museumnachtamsterdam.nl/