A reissue of Dennis Stock's 1970 release California Trip.
Dennis Stock was a celebrated American photographer, noted for his photo essays. His portfolio had a massive range and included many timeless pieces of work such as the free love movement of California, jazz, nature, and portrait work of icons such as James Dean and Billie Holiday. His photography has been exhibited all over the world, and his photos are part of many major museum collections. He won first prize in both Life's Young Photographers Contest in 1951 and the International Photo Competition in Poland in 1962. Stock passed away in 2010.
This 1968 photo series captured the peak of California’s
counterculture; Spellbinding black-and-white images show a heady
array of the state’s population: naked flower children living in
communes, Watts residents still reeling from Los Angeles’s 1965
race riots, aging snowbirds taking refuge at the innovative
retirement community Leisure World, and Hollywood newbies hungry
for stardom. -Artsy (September, 2019)
1968 was a year of turmoil for the United States, a time of social,
cultural and political upheaval. For five weeks, Stock traveled up
and down the California highways, documenting the counterculture.
The hippie scene was at its peak. California was then, and still
is, a place many Americans looked to as a hub of innovation and
progression. Now, some 50 years later, reading Stock’s introduction
to “California Trip” still seems of the moment: 'Every idea that
Western man explores in his pursuit of the best of all possible
worlds will be searched at the head lab — California. Technological
and spiritual quests vibrate throughout the state, intermingling,
often creating the ethereal. … Our future is being determined in
the lab out West.' -Washington Post (September, 2019)
People didn't buy Stock's book for his mind-blowing prose — they
were drawn to his compelling photos. He was a master at finding the
surreal in the mundane. -SF Gate (September, 2019)
From a semi-nude, long-haired couple posing naively and
romantically on the back of a horse to a bunch of mystical images
of beaches and natural landscapes, Dennis Stock captured California
in all its glory during the hippy, free love movement in 1968 when
he embarked on a five-week road trip through the sun-drenched
state. This particular series was published as a book in 1970,
titled California Trip, which quickly became a cult piece for book
collectors. -Metal Magazine (September 10, 2019)
Stock’s representation of California is framed somewhere between
the meandering remembrances of Tarantino’s blockbuster and Joan
Didion’s iconic “White Album” essay full of dark memories of a time
when culture fundamentally shifted. As the best documentary works
do, California Trip lets us draw our own conclusions, contemplate
our own prejudices, and muse over our own ideas of sun-drenched
nostalgia. -Hyperallergic, Oct. 2019
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