Louis Abolafia (February 23, 1941 – October 30, 1995) was an artist, social activist, and folk figure. His candidacy for

president of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...

under the Nudist Party on the Hippie 'Love Ticket' various times in the 1960s and onward was a form of political theater or

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

. He "ran" against

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

in 1968 as the naked Hippie "love candidate" with the slogan: "What Have I Got to Hide?" Abolafia previously had run in 1967 under the Cosmic Love Party, even then with the slogan "What Have I Got to Hide?" The son of a New York City florist, Abolafia was part of the

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

art scene in the 1960s. In this capacity, he organized "love-ins" and "happenings" that combined music, poetry and audience participation, inspiring the New York press to crown him "The Love King". He was a long-time resident of the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

, where he sheltered wayward youths and other transients in his storefront studio in the East Village. He published a pornographic/countercultural newspaper, ''Abolafia's Luv'', and had several art exhibitions from 1967 to 1970. He befriended a number of notable 1960s artists, including

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

, artist

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes ...

, Beat poet

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

(and other Factory hangers-on), Canadian socialite

Margaret Trudeau Margaret Joan Trudeau ( Sinclair, formerly Kemper; born September 10, 1948) is a Canadian activist. She married Pierre Trudeau, the 15th prime minister of Canada, in 1971; three years after he became prime minister. They divorced in 1984, du ...

, and Satsvarūpa Dāsa Gosvāmī, a senior disciple of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement. Abolafiaposter

Abolafia inspired the creation of the

Exotic Erotic Ball The Exotic Erotic Ball (often referred to as The Ball or Perry Mann's Exotic Erotic Ball) was held annually around Halloween time (usually the weekend before Halloween Night) in the San Francisco Bay Area of California and was the longest-running ...

in 1979 in San Francisco, held annually for more than three decades until it was canceled in 2010. In press materials for the first Ball, which was held as a campaign fundraiser for Abolafia, he was claimed to have coined the phrase "

Make love, not war "Make love, not war" is an anti-war slogan commonly associated with the American counterculture of the 1960s. It was used primarily by those who were opposed to the Vietnam War, but has been invoked in other anti-war contexts since, around th ...

!", though the attribution is disputed. He was a "descendant of the Abolafias—writers of the Kabbala".

Death

Louis Abolafia died of a drug overdose in 1995 in California, aged 54."Louis Abolafia, 54, was on Hippie 'Love Ticket'"
''Boston Globe'', November 3, 1995.

References

External links

alt.nntp2http.com
Abolafia for President
New Yorker.com 1941 births 1995 deaths Activists from New York (state) People from the Lower East Side Candidates in the 1980 United States presidential election 20th-century American politicians Social nudity advocates Drug-related deaths in California Candidates in the 1968 United States presidential election American people of Sephardic-Jewish descent Jewish American activists 20th-century American Jews American naturists {{US-activist-stub