Louis “Lou” 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. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

under the Nudist Party on the

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

Love Ticket at 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 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

in 1968 as the naked hippie love candidate with the slogan: "What Have I Got to Hide?" Abolafia previously had run in 1967 for Mayor of New York under the Cosmic Love Party, also then with the slogan "What Have I Got to Hide?" Abolafia was the youngest of four children, with two older brothers and one older sister, born to New York City florist Isaac Abolafia and his wife who were of Jewish heritage, with ancestral roots in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

Selânik Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

Patras Patras (; ; Katharevousa and ; ) is Greece's List of cities in Greece, third-largest city and the regional capital and largest city of Western Greece, in the northern Peloponnese, west of Athens. The city is built at the foot of Mount Panachaiko ...

Smyrna Smyrna ( ; , or ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast of Anatolia, Turkey. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence, and its good inland connections, Smyrna ...

(modern-day

İzmir İzmir is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara. It is on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast of Anatolia, and is the capital of İzmir Province. In 2024, the city of İzmir had ...

), and

Gelibolu Gelibolu is a town in Çanakkale Province of the Marmara Region, located in Eastern Thrace in the European part of Turkey. It is located on the southern shore of the Gallipoli, peninsula named after it on the Dardanelles strait, away from Lapsek ...

. Abolafia was part of the

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

art scene in the 1960s. In this capacity, he organized

love-in A love-in is a peaceful public gathering focused on meditation, love, music, sex and/or use of recreational drugs. The term was coined by Los Angeles radio comedian Peter Bergman, creator of comedy group The Firesign Theater, who also hosted the ...

s and

happening A happening is a performance, event, or situation art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow in 1959 to describe a range of art-related events. History Origins Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happening" i ...

s 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. Historically, it w ...

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

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

, artist

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and Installation art, installation, and she is also active in painting, performance art, performance, video art, Fashion design, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her wo ...

, 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 Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

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(and

Factory A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

hangers-on), Canadian socialite

Margaret Trudeau Margaret Joan Trudeau ( Sinclair; born September 10, 1948) is a Canadian activist and the mother of Justin Trudeau, the 23rd prime minister of Canada. She married Pierre Trudeau, the 15th prime minister of Canada, in 1971, three years after h ...

, and

Satsvarūpa Dāsa Gosvāmī Satsvarupa das Goswami (, Sanskrit: , Devanagari: ) (born Stephen Guarino on December 6, 1939) is a senior disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), better known i ...

, a senior disciple of

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (; ) (1 September 1896 – 14 November 1977) was a spiritual, philosophical, and religious teacher from India who spread the Hare Krishna (mantra), Hare Krishna mantra and the teachings of "# ...

, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement. Abolafiaposter

In 1980, Abolafia co-created the

Exotic Erotic Ball The Exotic Erotic Ball (often referred to as The Ball or Perry Mann's Exotic Erotic Ball) was held annually from 1979 to 2009 on a weekend, usually before Halloween night, in the San Francisco Bay Area, California and was a public, adult-themed e ...

with Perry Mann in San Francisco, held annually for more than three decades until it was canceled in 2010. The first iteration of the Ball was held in 1979 at Perry Mann’s flat in San Francisco and was billed at the time as The Nudist Ball, intended as a campaign fundraiser for Abolafia’s next political run. He was said 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 the ...

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

Death

Louis Abolafia died of a heart attack in 1995 in Los Angeles, California, aged 54. He was survived by his mother, two brothers, a sister, a son, a grandson, and his wife, whom he had married one year prior to his passing. "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 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