If The Head Fits, Wear It: Contemporary Art and The Grateful Dead
[2011-2017, Editor and Essayist]
If The Head Fits, Wear It is an anthology publication examining the intersection of the Grateful Dead and contemporary art. This project united three art practitioners working together for the first time: Elizabeth Cline, Mark A. Rodriguez, and Matt Siegle. Coming from backgrounds such as opera, sculpture, and performance, the editors shared working methodologies to edit and shape the concept of the book collaboratively. If The Head Fits, Wear It brings together a mix of California artists, writers, and organizers to examine and highlight the proximity between these two subcultures and forges new pathways for contemporary practices to engage the genre-defining expression inherent within Deadhead culture.
In 2017, Los Angeles Contemporary Archive hosted the official release of If The Head Fits, Wear It, and Online Ceramics created a limited-edition T-shirt for the launch.
2011-2017 / OUT OF PRINT/ 114 pages/ b/w printing on rainbow-colored pages/ 8 x 5 inches, softcover perfect bound
[Excerpt from essay, Keep the Scene Clean, by Elizabeth Cline 2016/17]
Can we look beyond what remains—the corporate brand of the Grateful Dead and its fans’ style—to see if today’s contemporary art world might learn something from the Dead’s past as a 1970s utopian community, one deeply invested in creative freedom? The contemporary art world and the world of Grateful Dead are closer than commonly imagined. After all, the Dead emerged from traditions similar to those that shaped many of today’s artists. Both share roots in a bohemian-anarchist aesthetic that grew out of the Beat Generation and American Transcendentalists. Both hold interests and values set outside the mainstream. Both privilege exploration and risk.