Browsing “Skateboarding”

So, yeah, last summer I was curating a few chunks of that huge skateboard art show in Paris called Public Domaine… This one.  Among other things, I was in charge of a deck exhibit downstairs under the moniker Agents Provocateurs -an anthology of offensive/controversial/political/message-charged skateboard graphics from then (1990-ish) to now. So that could have been that.

But the venue in question bares a souvenirs-type of shop, and I thought it’d be cool to pick a few of the graphics exhibited and make super high-quality silk-screen prints of them, just a run of 100 prints for each. The two chosen ones ended up being the Sean Cliver “Charles Manson Brown” done for 101 in 1993, and Todd Francis’ “Nature’s Revenge” deck for Julien Stranger out on Antihero.

To make sure this awesome art was going to be treated right, I really wanted to work with Anagraphis/Les Freres Lumineux, whose outstanding portfolio print work for legendary alternative cartoonists (Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton etc) is mind-blowing, albeit of course not cheap at all.

Prints were made, they looked great, a bunch sold at the show… But the leftover was pretty much promised to rot in the shop’s basement once it was over. It killed me to see it going to waste. So in broke-ass, yet super-hero-ish fashion, I went and salvaged the about 50 prints of each graphic left. The only thing I forgot is that I might not have at all the money for it but fuck it, I bought them all back -scooped them up American Pickers-style, minus the profit. And here they are now, available exclusively on Memory Screened!

Back in 1991 in Blagnac, France, the H Street team came and did a demo. We all got really perplexed when we saw that Danny Way didn’t bring a vert board. Instead what he carried was one of these straight-railed, round-tailed, mini-wheeled (and no riser pads ! The heresy…) set-ups that hadn’t really reached France yet. “He just switched to street skating,” we thought, right before D.Way dropped on the monstrous vert ramp and killed it like nobody before –two tricks from that day even ended up in Questionable. Just one out of a million anecdotes testifying D.Way’s progression-oriented mind, as I’m pretty sure a certain documentary will soon assess better than my unsignificant 2-cents… For the rest, from H-Street to Plan B through Alien Workshop and Blind, Danny found a bit of time to discuss his own five favorite graphics. It’s all on Memory Screened.

I’m really stoked on the Allister Lee x ATLAS decks.  Each of the two decks in this artist series is signed and numbered in an edition of 50 and comes with an original piece of art, shrink-wrapped with each deck.  Get them at Atlas Skateboarding in San Mateo and check-out the fine installation that Allister and the Atlas crew setup in their shop. Up until March 12, 2012.  Mahalo to Allister and to Ryen, Mike and Nick at ATLAS! 

ATLAS SKATEBOARDING
209 2nd Ave.
San Mateo, CA 94401
Tel: 650.401.7110

Decks are also available at Equal Dist., where you’ll find Allister Lee’s infamous 500 Marker Poster as well as original artwork inspired by his love and expertise in the dark-arts.

Talk about a well-curated skateboard shop…!  Allister Lee also designed the ATLAS shop-decks shown below. 

“We thought Solitary Arts and their 50mm 87A “Black Eggs” wheels were rad. So much so that we were inspired to create this clip and bridge the gap between 2 skate crews: Solitary Arts and Circle A.” Featuring Sean Connolly, Rich Hart and friends.

Thanks to both Nato and Makoto at Maxwell Distribution for their shared support and for putting this into action!

Ken Goto came through and snapped photos of both Geoff McFetridge (in LA) and myself for the Solitary Arts in issue 09 of SLIDER Magazine out of Japan.

The cover for this issue of SLIDER is the classic J.Grant Brittain photo-cover from Transworld (June 1987) of Tod Swank. Issue 09 features 6 luminaries in skateboarding photography and a photo retrospective of their works, along with a 20 page article on Tommy Guerrero, Ray Barbee, Matt Rodriguez, and Chuck Treece’s (BLKTOP Project) most recent tour of Japan, all shot by Goto.  You can order it through their site as it’s well worth it. Comes with a nice calendar too!

Below, Geoff McFetridge and Yong-Ki Chang, shot by Andrew Paynter. Thanks Andrew!

Fellow Mumbler, Don Pendleton did a series for Stereo that will be in shops soon. If you’re any sort of fan of Don or Stereo, you know how awesome these are. Nice one Don. Stereo’s full Spring ’12 catalog.

Photo © Arto Saari / Artofoto

Proudly hailing from Liverpool, no wonder Geoff Rowley’s career has been maculated with various winks at football culture -the most famous being of course his use of Gerry And The Pacemakers’ “You’ll Never Walk Alone” song in his Really Sorry part, which doubles as Liverpool Football Club’s anthem, duh. How did that one tune come into the picture? Geoff explains on A Visual Sound.

I had loosely suspected it before. It became really obvious when I started working on curating the board exhibit for that one show in Paris last summer: in 2011, there aren’t that many skateboard graphics that have something to say. I mean, by “newer” artists -which immediately sets asides the Templetons, Eli Gesners, Mike Hills, Todd Francises, Clivers, McKees and Aly Moores of Droorstalgic times past.
Not to tout the expired stale fart trumpet again, but my theme being called Agents Provocateurs -a journey through offensive/political board graphics- I sadly only had a couple names in mind when time came not to make this an all-90s board exhibit.
Thanks lil’ Baby Jesus though, there’s still a handful of artists who still carry the maculate torch today. Among the Siebens, the Winston Tsengs (enjoi) and the Whoever-thinks-of-these-sick-Skatementals-concepts, Ben Horton has remained one of my personal faves since he launched $LAVE Skateboards.  The brilliance of it all, the video, Ben Raybourn : the guy behind it had to be a Midas of sorts, I thought.  Well, he is. But he’ll never admit it. Enjoy his interview over at Memory Screened.

When it comes to documenting Australian skateboarding in moving pictures, Chris Middlebrook is the most well known and no doubt one of the most devoted. Two of his most recent accomplishments include Nike SB Chronicles #1 and what is arguably the video part of the year: Nick Boserio’s Life Splicing part.

Aside from VX and HD Midds is also a bit of a Super 8 lord. Over at the SbA site we have recently unearthed Chris Middlebrook’s Super 8 reel from 2008. Inside you will find archival footage of: Shane O’Neill, Andrew Brophy Dane Burman, Lewis Marnell, Andrew Currie, Bryce Golder, Nick Boserio, Alex Campbell, Justin Brock, Tommy Fynn and a myriad of other talented rolling units.

Chris Middlebrook is currently working on a part for the next Transworld Video “The Cinematographer Project”: be prepared for some locally spawned lunacy in that one.

Merry Merry Season peoples. See you next year.

Just wanted to share a nice little feature on my work over on the ever growing and ever excellent ONE GIANT ARM site, possibly a good end to the year and gives an insight to 2012 projects…