Psychedelic Solution

Psychedelic Solution
Psychedelic Solution event in 1989
EstablishedOctober 31, 1986 (1986-10-31)
DissolvedDecember 1994 (1994-12) (partially) and November 2004 (2004-11) (fully)
Location33 West 8th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10011
TypeArt gallery and store
OwnersJacaeber Kastor (as well as director and curator)
Employees~12 (at peak in ~1990)
Websitepsychedelicsolution.com

Psychedelic Solution was a storefront and art gallery in Greenwich Village in New York City that featured and sold psychedelic art. It was founded and run by Jacaeber Kastor. The gallery was fully open to the public and operated from October 1986 to December 1994. Subsequently, it continued to operate by appointment only for private buyers until November 2004.

At its launch, Psychedelic Solution was said to have been the first major psychedelic outpost on the East Coast of the United States in more than a decade. In addition, it was described as one of only one or two psychedelic art galleries in existence in 1991. The gallery has been referred to as "legendary" and is regarded as having had a major influence in helping to revive psychedelic art in the 1980s, which has led to its founder Kastor being described as one of the "godfathers" of psychedelic art. In addition to Psychedelic Solution's gallery exhibits, the store sold psychedelic art, including posters and postcards, which were often of well-known psychedelic rock music groups.

Psychedelic Solution exhibited work by psychedelic artists including Rick Griffin, H. R. Giger, Peter Max, Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, Stanley Mouse, Paul Mavrides, Mark Mothersbaugh, Mark McCloud, Robert Crumb, Wes Wilson, and Robert Williams, among many others. Notable visitors and clientele of Psychedelic Solution are said to have included the Grateful Dead, Iggy Pop, John McEnroe, and Whoopi Goldberg, among others. Members of the nearby Temple of the True Inner Light, a psychedelic church in the East Village who also created and distributed some amateur psychedelic art of their own, are said to have visited Psychedelic Solution as well.

A special exhibition called "Field Trip: Psychedelic Solution, 1986-1995" featuring art from Psychedelic Solution's collection was held at the 30th anniversary of New York's Outsider Art Fair in 2022. It was curated by Fred Tomaselli.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Jarnow, Jesse (29 March 2016). Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America. Grand Central Publishing. pp. 225–226, 279, 285–286. ISBN 978-0-306-82256-8. Retrieved 25 September 2026. Not long after Jacaeber Kastor opens the Psychedelic Solution, his Manhattan art gallery on West Eighth Street [...] Launching on Halloween 1986, Kastor's gallery becomes the City's first major psychedelic outpost in a decade or more, [...] the Psychedelic Solution is fully open to the public, [...]
  2. 1 2 3 4 Nobles, Jennifer (29 February 2024). "Feelin' groovy: Chambers Project to welcome 'Godfathers' of psychedelic art". The Union. Retrieved 25 September 2026. A young Kastor had the foresight to recognize the poster movement as a major one, and used it as a springboard for his still-thriving career in art. His gallery, Psychedelic Solution, opened in 1986 in New York City [...] "His gallery that he ran for 16 years was kind of the epicenter of psychedelic art and culture," Chambers said. "He is a legend in the art world, not necessarily for his art but for his curation. [...] [Kastor] is pleased to also be included as one of the "Godfathers."
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Hanna, Jon (2004). Psychedelic Resource List (PDF) (Fourth Edition (version 4.5) ed.). Sacramento, CA: Soma Graphics. ISBN 0-9654383-3-3. Retrieved 25 September 2026.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Kramer, Mark (2 January 1995). "Groovin' Out of Business". New York Magazine. New York Media, LLC. p. 29. Retrieved 25 September 2026.
  5. 1 2 Hughes, C. J. (1 May 2005). "Where Have All the Shoe Stores Gone?". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 September 2026. The longtime poster gallery Psychedelic Solution Gallery closed last fall, and Club W8th, the dance club, also shut its doors.
  6. 1 2 Kaplan, Eric (October 1987). "The Hippies That Time Forgot / Still Hippies, After All These Years". Spy. No. October 1987. pp. 56–62. ISSN 0890-1759. Archived from the original on 25 September 2026. PSYCHEDELIC SOLUTION, 33 West 8th Street. Swirly poster gallery. [...] The speaker is Jacaeber Kastor, creator and owner of the 8th Street gallery Psychedelic Solution, an important fixture in New York's neocounterculture. [...] When the gallery has an opening, Aaron, the angry, tubby emissary from the Yippies, comes, as do missionaries from the Temple of the True Inner Light. [...]
  7. 1 2 3 Davis, Erik (30 April 2024). Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium. MIT Press. pp. 12, 244. ISBN 978-0-262-04850-7. Retrieved 25 September 2026. [...] Jacaeber Kastor's Psychedelic Solution, a radical art gallery cloaked as a New York City headshop. [...] Jacaeber Kastor is an artist, curator, and proprietor of New York's Psychedelic Solution gallery from 1986 to 2004.
  8. 1 2 3 McCormick, Carlo (1991). "Art World Wig-Out". SPIN. SPIN Media LLC. p. 20. Retrieved 25 September 2026. In 1986, the doors opened on what has since established itself as one of the most bizarre, eccentric, and daring art galleries to infect the New York cultural scene. Called Psychedelic Solution, this head shop for the eye [...] "I suppose I should be proud that we do this," says gallery owner Jacaeber Kastor. "But I'm also horrified at how pathetic it is that except for maybe La Luz de Jesus Gallery in L.A. there's no one else doing it. There's a large body of important artwork out there that remains generally unrepresented, and at this point, I guess we're still the only place for certain artists."
  9. ↑ Elcock, C.C.P. (2023). Psychedelic New York: A History of LSD in the City. Intoxicating Histories. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 193. ISBN 978-0-2280-1804-9. Retrieved 25 September 2026. Back in Greenwich Village, there was an even stronger nod to the psychedelic culture of the Sixties. In 1988, Jacaeber Kastor, an acquaintance of Isaac Abrams, organized an art exhibition at the Psychedelic Solution Gallery. [...] The exhibitions at the Psychedelic Solution Gallery as well as the Wooster Group's take on the psychedelic Sixties approached lsd retrospectively as a cultural phenomenon firmly rooted in a particular era. [...]
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Allen, Jeffery Renard; Ryan, Hugh; Mattia, Aurora; Hoey, Tadhg (1 June 2022). "Field Trip: Psychedelic Solutions, 1986–1995 Curated…". BOMB Magazine. Retrieved 25 September 2026.
  11. ↑ "Psychedelic Solution: A Counterculture Fine Arts Gallery, 1986–1995". Gallery 98. 18 August 2023. Retrieved 25 September 2026.
  12. 1 2 3 "'Trippy dreamscapes' of Jacaeber Kastor to be featured at The Chambers Project". The Union. 22 August 2019. Retrieved 25 September 2026. Kastor opened his gallery, aptly named Psychedelic Solution, on a busy thoroughfare of New York City's fabled West Village in 1986, and over the next decade curated a stunning game-changing series of shows featuring important visionary and psychedelic artists, including H. R. Giger, Rick Griffin, Robert Williams, Lee Conklin, Robert Crumb, Joe Coleman, Wes Wilson, Alex Grey, Vaughn and Mark Bode, Victor Moscoso, Mark Motherbaugh, Alton Kelley, Paul Mavrides, Stanley Mouse, Spain Rodriguez , Gilbert Shelton, John Van Hamersveld, S. Clay Wilson, Jonathan Shaw, Pushead and Axel Stocks. [...]
  13. 1 2 3 Ghassemitari, Shawn (3 March 2022). "Outsider Art Fair Returns to New York's Metropolitan Pavilion". Hypebeast. Retrieved 25 September 2026. After a long hiatus since the beginning of the pandemic, New York's Outsider Art Fair will return to celebrate its 30th Anniversary edition next week. To commemorate the event, contemporary artist Fred Tomasselli has curated "Field Trip: Psychedelic Solution, 1986-1995," a special exhibition featuring work championed by the legendary underground Greenwich Village gallery, Psychedelic Solution.
  14. ↑ Pearce, Michael (22 March 2024). "Godfathers of Psychedelic and Visionary Art". MutualArt. Retrieved 25 September 2026. The fourth Godfather, Jacaeber Kastor, understood its importance in the 1960s, and preserved a superb collection of posters and art, displaying them in the 1980s at his Psychedelic Solution Gallery in New York.
  15. ↑ Genzlinger, Neil (30 January 2020), "Wes Wilson, Psychedelic Poster Pioneer, Dies at 82", The New York Times, retrieved 25 September 2026, [...] Jacaeber Kastor, who mounted a Wilson show at his Psychedelic Solution gallery in the West Village of Manhattan in 1987, [...]
  16. ↑ Morris, Hamilton (31 May 2019). "Finding Hide-and-Seek". The Museum of Modern Art. Supplemental Video
  17. ↑ Temple of the True Inner Light (8 December 1981), Testimony To The Psychedelic (The Newest Testament To The Light), New York City, New York: Temple of the True Inner Light
  18. 1 2 Heller, Steven (1 March 2022). "The Daily Heller: Recalling Magic Carpet Rides – PRINT Magazine". PRINT Magazine. Retrieved 25 September 2026.
  19. ↑ Smith, Roberta (3 March 2022), The Outsider Art Fair Returns, in Top Form, ISSN 0362-4331, retrieved 25 September 2026
  20. ↑ Aswad, Jem (4 March 2022). "Outsider Art Fair Features Eye-Popping Works Connected to Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, Grateful Dead, Michael Stipe, More". Variety. Retrieved 25 September 2026.