LONDON.- Four decades on from the festival that shook the world, Idea Generation Gallery celebrates the anniversary of Woodstock with an exhibition of amazing photographs, all taken from the artist-endorsed, limited edition multi media package; Woodstock Experience, published by Genesis Publications.

Featuring over 200 photographs by official Woodstock photographer Henry Diltz, and unseen and unpublished images by a star-struck but quick-witted teen photographer Dan Garson, Woodstock Experience provides a visual trip through these legendary days in a field in upstate New York.

Each two-part edition includes contributions from original interviews with 65 artists and luminaries, including Crosby, Stills and Nash, Carlos Santana and Arlo Guthrie and the festival’s organiser Michael Lang. The cover artwork has been designed by internationally renowned artist Shepard Fairey, and contains never before published lyrics, drawings, poems, monographs, diary entries and an original, vintage Woodstock ticket. Woodstock Experience is the ultimate record of one of the greatest moments in popular music history, and profiles the hippies, beatniks, musicians and festival organisers who were part of this cultural explosion in the summer of 1969.

The Exhibition
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair is widely regarded as one of the most significant moments in popular music history and was listed one of the “50 moments that changed the history of rock and roll” by Rolling Stone magazine.

Idea Generation Gallery is proud to present Woodstock Experience, a selection of photographs taken from the limited edition, exquisitely produced hand-crafted boxed set from Genesis Publications. Commemorating the people, the place, and the time, this is the rock music exhibition of summer 2009.

The Publication
In honour of the upcoming 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival, Genesis Publications, in partnership with Woodstock’s Executive Producer Michael Lang, have created a new limited edition multi-media package for publication in 2009, signed by Lang himself. The book will also feature an original essay from Ben Fong-Torres, former Senior Editor of Rolling Stone Magazine, on the anti-war songs sung at Woodstock and the political implications they had in the late Sixties.

Divided into two sections, Woodstock Experience consists of behind-the-scenes and performance images from official Woodstock photographer Henry Diltz and never before seen images from a stunned Dan Garson, an aspiring photographer who aged 17 covered the event for his high school newspaper. The two sets of images represent both ends of the Woodstock experience: one from a world-worn rock and roll photographer; the other from a young man in awe of the music and free-love atmosphere so different from his life back in small-town America.

In a stellar mix of original interviews and images of over 65 artists and luminaries, Woodstock performers such as Crosby, Stills and Nash, Carlos Santana and Ravi Shankar and the festival’s organiser Michael Lang, Woodstock Experience documents the personal experiences of some of the most important artists, thinkers, writers, designers and photographers from around the world.

Woodstock Experience also explores Woodstock from cultural, social, political and environmental standpoints. Woodstock has undoubtedly left its mark but whether it effected lasting cultural change or was an illusion, whether it was the beginning or the end of an era, and what its long term impact on rock and roll has been are all explored in this amazing retrospective of one of the 20th Century’s most significant events.

Each edition of the book, with cover artwork designed by artist Shepard Fairey, comes as a time capsule, designed to be like a box of Lang’s mementoes from the festival, containing unique and special items from those three historic days. A pull-out drawer contains loose-leaf additions: a 7"-vinyl pressing, original fine art prints, specially written essays, Michael Lang's own hand-drawn site map, reproduced in facsimile, and an authentic, vintage Woodstock ticket.

“Woodstock is one of the musical events of the 20th century and for many it sums up the Sixties.” Nick Roylance, managing director of Genesis Publications continues, “40 years later, it lives on in the minds of a generation that changed music forever and the imaginations of those who came after it”.

“It was the most incredible door we ever walked through. You don’t forget the sound you hear first inside. It goes through your fingers to the guitar, to the amplifier, to the speakers, to the monitor, up into the P.A. It hit the people – 550,000 people – then it comes back at you.” Carlos Santana