Indica Gallery

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The Indica Gallery was an art gallery and bookstore in London in the Swinging Sixties in the mid-1960s. The gallery, founded by John Dunbar , Barry Miles and Peter Asher , existed for two years, from November 1965 to November 1967. It was a center of London's underground culture . The underground magazine International Times was founded in 1966 by Barry Miles and John "Hoppy" Hopkins in the Indica bookstore.

history

John Dunbar, who had just finished his art studies, met Barry Miles, who worked for the bookstore "Better Books", at the legendary International Poetry Incarnation festival on June 11, 1965 at the Royal Albert Hall . The two planned to open an art gallery and bookstore. They won Peter Asher as a partner for the financing, and founded the company "Miles, Asher and Dunbar Limited" ( MAD , German: crazy ).

In November 1965, the Indica Gallery and an attached bookstore opened at Mason's Yard 6, not far from Piccadilly Circus . Dunbar was in charge of the gallery, Miles was in charge of the bookstore. Asher's friend Paul McCartney had helped set it up, and the store's first cash register was a gift from Jane Asher , Peter's sister and McCartney's girlfriend at the time.

According to the Observer , Indica organized some of the most radical avant-garde shows in London ( Indica organizes some of the most avant-garde shows that can be seen in London ), including happenings by Yoko Ono , who first met John Lennon here .

In November 1967 the Indica Gallery had to close due to financial difficulties. The bookstore had already moved in 1966.

Aftermath

At the end of 2006, the Riflemaker Gallery in London showed an exhibition of artists under the name "Riflemaker becomes Indica" who had been represented at the Indica Gallery 40 years earlier. At the end of 2007 the exhibition was shown as “Nyehaus becomes Indica” in the Nyehaus gallery in New York .

Surname

While Riflemaker the name Indica on the English word "indications" ( Notes - returns), the connection to the Latin names of cannabis is Cannabis indica - more likely.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John Dunbar quoted in Tate Magazine (Summer 2004). John Dunbar on Indica on thecentreofattention.org (English). With a photo by Peter Asher, Barry Miles and John Dunbar, 1966
  2. ↑ a b c d Kate Bernard: Playing to the gallery. It's 40 years since Indica set London Swinging. The Guardian, November 5, 2006 (English)
  3. ↑ a b Riflemaker becomes Indica . November 20, 2006 - February 24, 2007
  4. ^ Nyehaus becomes Indica ( memento from January 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). November 8 - December 22, 2007

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 '26.3 "  N , 0 ° 8' 15.7"  W.