Raymond Pettibon & Yoshua Okon: Hipnostasis

Echoing both Raymond Pettibon’s Weatherman ’69 (1989-1990) and Yoshua Okon’s Lago Bolsena (2004) and Bocanegra (2005-7), this video installation, a collaboration between the two artists, explores the subculture of old hippies and beach bums from Venice Beach. The videos feature men who have been living on the beach for more than 30 years forming a tightly-knit alternative community that, despite its lack of functionality and lack of touch with mainstream reality, thrives and survives on its own terms—paying a high price to do so nonetheless. The inspiration behind the piece comes from the past-life therapist which Okon and Pettibon visited together, and who told the artists that one of them had been a hippie cult-leader in a past life. This drove them to seek out this particular group of men and start working with them. Andrew Berardini, curator.

Raymond Pettibon & Yoshua Okon
Hipnostasis
Kurator: Andrew Berardini