Denver Art Museum celebrates the graphics and aesthetics of the San Francisco sound in The Psychedelic Experience. At core, the exhibition displays some of the museum’s newly aquired Psychedelic Rock posters, representing the work of artists like Wes Wilson and Victor Moscoso. Building the cultural context, the exhibition explores the movements origins on Haight-Ashbury to the local concerts at Red Rocks. Additionally, Denver Art Museum has produced a rather engaging online component, which is really not to be missed. Check that here. The exhibit is on view until July 19, 2009.

Head to the jump for a glimpse at a few posters.

Being that the circus is infinitely interesting, P.T. Barnum is legend, and sideshow  freaks are some of the greatest pieces of Americana, Matt Hoyle’s Barnumville is a true joy. Fat ladies and strong men. Tattoos and piercings. What else you need? (via CR).

Hoyle specialized in portraits of rich characters and intriguing faces. His site features all photographs from the project.

Meet the Serpent Lady and the Strong Man after the jump.

Open now at Museum of Antropology at the University of British Columbia is Tatau: Samoan Tattooing and Global Culture. The exhibition is curated by art historian Peter Brunt and includes 40 photographs from Mark Adams. Tatau runs until September 30, 2009.

Above is a longer video than normally placed on the site. The clip features Dr. Albert Wendt speaking on the tradition of Samoan tattoo. It provides both context for the exhibition and a good deal of information for those of us unable to travel to British Columbia.

The American Landscape is dotted with museums catering to histories grand and small. One example is the Museum of Funeral Customs in Springfield, IL. Located close to Lincoln’s tomb, the museum has fallen (like many small museums) on hard times. The story is not exceptional, and the tale resonates for all who try and keep alive cultural tradition and legacy through public spaces. Dirk Johnson’s “A Funeral Museum At Death’s Door” covers the bases for the NYT.

Images of the displays at the Museum of Funeral Customs follow.

Throughout the Cold War, the creation and reception of art in Germany was inseparably linked to divided political realities. Artists in East and West Germany redeployed the traditions of abstraction and realism in new national and international contexts, creating a wide range of powerful artworks, often responding to popular culture and technologies of reproduction.

This substantial and profusely illustrated book, with sixteen important essays by major art historians and cultural critics, is the first comprehensive look at the full extent of postwar German art. It includes work by Georg Baselitz, Willi Baumeister, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joseph Beuys, Hanne Darboven, Hermann Glöckner, Hannah Höch, Jörg Immendorf, Anselm Kiefer, Blinky Palermo, A. R. Penck, Gerhard Richter, Rosemarie Trockel, Werner Tübke, Wolf Vostell, and many others.

Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Cultures is the catalogue for a groundbreaking international exhibition that reveals for the first time the contribution of both Germanys to the development of contemporary art.

Authored by Stephanie Barron, senior curator of contemporary art at LACMA, Art of Two Germanys is available from Harry N. Abrams.

On April 14, 1865, President and Mrs. Lincoln attended a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. As the Lincolns watched the play, actor John Wilkes Booth entered their private box and shot the president in the back of the head. This Currier & Ives print depicts the event.

The above print and many other fine objects make up Lincoln Treasures an exhibition at the Chicago History Museum. Celebrating the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, the Museum tells through its collections the story of Abe’s rise, his family life and his lasting legacy. Through August 16, 2009.

Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark, Chicago, IL.

Brooklyn’s City Reliquary hosts Over Spilt Milk: The Fight For Fair Price and Fair Profit in Depression Era New York. Through pamphlets, broadsides and containers, the exhibition (put on by the New York Food Museum) tells the story of the Consumer-Farmer Milk Cooperative. More info here. (via NotCot).

The City Reliquary is located at 370 Metropolitan Avenue.

More ephemera from the exhibition follows.

Beauty in Common Things: American Arts and Crafts Pottery from the Two Red Roses Foundation showcases the best of the best of the foundations boundless collection of arts and crafts pottery. From Rookwood to Teco, the collection covers the major potteries of the period. The exhibition is on view until April 26, 2009, at The Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida. A catalog, with essays by Dr. Martin Eidelberg and Dr. Jonathan Clancy, complements the show. Full review in this week’s Bee.

Further examples of Arts and Crafts pottery after the jump.

There is something glorious about museum’s that celebrate ephemera. The Hatch Sticker Museum, located in Berlin, is set to open of February 19, 2009. The space will celebrate all aspects of the medium – from advertising to sticker art. Admission is free and they invite visitors to add to the growing collection by adding their own sticker work to the walls.

Opening this month at the newly refurbished National Museum of American History, Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life includes a large collection of extraordinary objects (no surprise). One of the largest celebrations of the bicentennial, the exhibit anchors the celebrations on the National Mall. A full review of happenings has been published in this weeks Bee.

Above is a grouping of objects found in Lincoln’s pockets the night of his assassination

Expect a good amount of further Lincoln related posts leading to February 12, 2009.