The Oakland Museum: Margaret de Patta closes this Sunday, see her revolutionary jewelry along with the new 1968 exhibit, featuring Janis Joplin’s feather boa and bell bottoms

If those Pants Could Talk! Janis Joplin’s bell bottoms are featured in “The 1968 Exhibit” at the Oakland Museum through August 19, 2012. Comprised of Indian block print with a patchwork flower power crotch, these are an artful sample of the period’s hippie fashion. Photo courtesy: Minnesota History Center

Exiting OCM this Sunday—Space-Light Structure: The Jewelry of Margaret De Patta, a must-see retrospective celebrating revolutionary modernist jeweler Margaret De Patta’s creative legacy.  “Space-Light-Structure” features more than 60 jewelry pieces as well as ceramics, flatware, photographs, pictograms, and newly released archival material. Based in the Bay Area, studio jeweler Margaret De Patta (1903-1964), who studied with Bauahus sculptor Moholy-Nagy in Chicago, is credited with starting the American studio jewelry movement on the West Coast.  The Oakland Museum of California holds the largest collection of De Patta’s work, most of which was donated by her (third) husband Eugene Bielawski after the artist’s untimely death by suicide in 1964.  The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.

Ongoing—The 1968 Exhibit   Experience one of the most powerful years in recent history in this unforgettable exhibition exploring the social, political, and economic events of 1968. A turning point for a generation coming of age and a nation engaged in war, 1968 saw the peak of the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, riots at the Democratic National Convention, Black Power demonstrations at the Summer Olympics, Feminist demonstrations at the Miss America pageant, and much more. The Bay Area was at the forefront with an emerging California counterculture.  Presented as an ongoing collective of historical and personal stories, the exhibition is for those who lived through it, those who’ve heard about it, and those who wonder why it matters.  This participatory exhibit uses art, audio clip, films, games and hang-out lounge and touches on all major changes and events in that pivotal year, 1968.

Details:  The Oakland Museum of California is located at 1000 Oak Street, Oakland.  Open Wednesday-Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Admission is $12 general, $9 seniors and students with valid ID.  For more information visit http://museumca.org/