"Aoxomoxoa," The Grateful Dead, The Sons of Champlin, Initital Shock, January 24-25-26, Avalon Ballroom, Richard Alden Griffin

Cartoonist and graphic designer Richard Alden “Rick” Griffin produced numerous psychedelic posters advertising West Coast rock shows during the 1960s, including influential designs for the Grateful Dead. These posters often feature imagery and text that draw inspiration from Art Nouveau, as well as from contemporary notions concerning spirituality. Griffin’s poster displays his interest in breaking down the boundaries between the individual and the elements that make up the outside world. The relationship between human and plant sexuality, a concept famously explored by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in the 18th century, seems to have captured Griffin’s attention. Botanical and animal sexual systems combine in the poster to create a hybridized image of the world in which lotus flowers grow from wombs bearing human fetuses and the roots of trees resemble a woman’s ovaries and a vagina. A phallic skull stands below a sun ringed with sperm, further reinforcing the proposed oneness of all things.