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The Golden Sixties Exhibition - until 30 September 2013

1960's Greater freedom for women, Doc Martens boots were created

1961 Yuri Gagarin, first man in space

1962 Mousetrap invented

1964 BBC 2 on air / The Kennedy tragedy

1966 England won the football World cup, the miniskirts were created

1967 First heart transplantation operation / BBC first channel to have colour

1968 Riots in France " May 68 " / Georges Best was the best in Europe

1969 The Apollo 11 mission astronaut Neil Armstrong is the first man to walk on the moon / the first James Bond film, the first victory of Eddy Merckx on the Tour de France/ Arpanet, the research-oriented prototype of the Internet was introduced.

The Golden Sixties Exhibition is all that and more. Nicely set out inside the superb Liège-Guillemins railway station, this exhibition allows today's visitors to travel back to the times of the Swinging Sixties, the birth of the British pop, the conquest of space, the Pop Music and Pop Art, the civil rights movements/ the Yéyé music and many other social and cultural features of the 1960s.

The revolution of the Golden Sixties

In the 1960’s the striving for liberty took on new accents, more demanding and limitless in its aim. An era of proliferation, effervescence and ebullition spread itself in all continents resulting in an accumulation of spectacular transformations and profound changes in people’s behaviour. These were the years of booming growth and many revolutions. During the Golden Sixties, a genuine catalyst for change, a wind of revolution swept over the economy, culture and politics.

A political revolution turned the world stage upside down, deeply altering the balance of power between countries, between communities and between social classes.

A revolution in attitudes and culture swept away the traditional values, old-fashioned principles and artistic conventions of the set order and conformism that gripped society.

A technical and economic revolution gave rise to consumer society for a new generation keen on gathering the fruits of growth.

The sixties also benefitted from an unprecedented sounding board thanks to the development of communication means, in particular television, which gave an almost instantaneous impact to news. The 1950’s started to change the economy, but the 1960’s changed the way we lived…

Daily life in Belgium

With the Golden Sixties, mass consumption became an end in itself. Like the characters in the 1965 novel Les Choses, Une histoire des années 60 (Things, a history of the 1960’s) by Georges Perec, the children of the baby-boom let themselves be enticed by the market economy, advertising and the American way of life. People bought refrigerators, washing machines, and mixers; drove Ford Mustangs, Minis or mopeds; discovered central heating, cable television, and computers; wore synthetic fabrics, panties and jeans; gave in to the easiness of disposable products, automatic devices and credit cards; people enjoyed more their leisure time going on holiday in sea resorts, attending an operetta featuring Annie Cordy at the Variétés theatre, a light comedy starring Christiane Lenain at the Théâtre des Galeries venue or the Ballet of the 20th century by Béjart at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie theatre; tried out self-service, fast-food restaurants and the produce of intensive farming… In the 1960’s even chicken underwent a revolution!

For more information on the exhibition please visit www.expo-goldensixties.be

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