Shiloh Baptist Church. Courtesy Hidden Philadelphia.
- A collaborative video installation by Raymond Pettibon and Yoshua Okon premiered last week at the Armory Center for the Arts. The work explores the tight-knit subculture of old hippies and beach bums who have lived in Venice Beach for more than thirty years. The inspiration behind the piece comes from the past-life therapist which Okon and Pettibon (Season 2) visited together, and who told the artists that one of them had been a hippie cult-leader in a past life. Through August 31.
- CITYarts recently presented a Royal Simplicity award to honor the artistic patronage and endeavors of Sheikha Manal Bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The award was specially designed by artist Ursula Von Rydingsvard (Season 4) and depicts an abstracted castle and forest hideaway.
- Hidden Philadelphia opens up the city’s lesser known historical and architectural landmarks to the public through artists collaborations. One of this year’s highlights takes place in the maze-like Victorian space of the Shiloh Baptist Church, where Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle (Season 4) has installed the sound installation Sonambulo. The festival runs May 30 – June 28.
- At PHotoEspaña, Manglano-Ovalle is also presenting two surveillance video installations inside the slaughterhouse-turned-contemporary art center Matadero Madrid. The artist presents Nocturne (White Poppies) and Sonambulo III (Infrared). The former shows a field of Afghan poppies while the second monitors the artist’s son sleeping, “confronting beauty with danger.” From May 30 through July 12.
- Universal Code opens next week at Toronto’s Power Plant. Timed to coincide with the International Year of Astronomy, the exhibition presents the work of artists whose work is fascinated with the origin and nature of the universe, including Franz Ackermann, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Art21’s Josiah McElheny and Gabriel Orozco.
