BLACK LIGHT ART SERIES

Īlthough blacklight posters have continually been produced since the 1960s, there has been a resurgence in popularity since 2007 as blacklight and glow-in-the-dark parties have become more popular. Since then, the art form has gone out of fashion and is generally viewed as a relic of the 1970s.

BLACK LIGHT ART SERIES

Commercial producers happily reciprocated by incorporating blaxploitation themes into their posters, as in George Goode's series for the Houston Black Light Company and George Stowe Jr.'s work for One Stop Posters. At its height radical black artists found inspiration in the aesthetic, such as Faith Ringgold's series of Black Light paintings that eschewed any white pigment, or Barbara Jones-Hogu's prints (especially Relate to Your Heritage). Designs ranged from respectful copies of concert posters to prurient adolescent fantasies. The style was popular in advertisements for concerts at venues like the Fillmore and Avalon Ballroom, and further promoted and commercialized by companies like Pandora Productions (established in Minneapolis, 1964) and the Houston Black Light Company (Houston, 1969). In the United States, blacklight posters emerged as part of the psychedelic fashion scene between 19. With the ability to glow and vibrate under ultraviolet light, the posters could simulate the sensations and visual distortions one experienced during an acid trip. The 1960s saw the pervasive use of recreational drugs, especially mass use of hallucinogenics such as LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), mescaline, and marijuana for the first time.

marketed the ink chiefly to the military before a counterculture emerged to embrace the aesthetic. Īlthough black lights date to 1903 with the development of the optical filter glass Wood's glass, fluorescent ink was not developed until 1932 when the Switzer brothers were inspired by a Popular Science magazine article to experiment in their father's pharmacy. The inks used contain phosphors which cause them to glow when exposed to ultraviolet light emitted from black lights.

Two examples of fluorescent blacklight bulbs with light fixtures and packaging and a novelty incandescent bulb.Ī blacklight poster or black light poster is a poster printed with inks which fluoresce under a black light.

Black light art