
Ben Van Meter began making films and light shows in the mid-1960s in San Francisco and soon became a leading figure in Bay Area-underground filmmaking. His films, especially S.F. Trips Festival, An Opening (1966) and the epic Acid Mantra or Rebirth of a Nation (1968), are compelling attempts to visually and sonically inscribe psychedelia, as experience and philosophy, in the medium of film. Van Meter’s films were unavailable for many years, but their ongoing restoration by the Academy Film Archive and their inclusion in the de Young Museum’s 2017 exhibition, The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock ‘n’ Roll, has gained them a new audience.

May 04, 1979

November 20, 1969

January 01, 1974

May 23, 1969

December 31, 1970

December 31, 1971

January 01, 1971

June 06, 1966

December 26, 1967

May 05, 1965

January 01, 1965

January 01, 1964

January 30, 1967

June 30, 1968

November 27, 1965

June 15, 1965

January 01, 1967

January 01, 1967

January 01, 1967

October 18, 1968

January 01, 1970

November 02, 1968

October 10, 1969

August 24, 1974

May 08, 1966

April 10, 1974

June 08, 1967

January 01, 1968