photo: colin sussingham
Years ago, there was an interview with Simon Evans, an arty British skateboarder with classic 411-era ballerina arms living in San Francisco, that brought up the relationship between art and skateboarding. Evans, an accomplished artist in his own right, claimed that skateboarding was merely an extension of art making. Perhaps a year later, in an interview with Big Brother, Geoff Rowley denied the claim.
This issue is not at all limited to British-born skateboarders. For people like me, who spend a great deal of time thinking about both, the relationship between art and skateboarding remains elusively obstinate. Nevertheless, I’ve come up with my own answer: Skateboarding can be arty, but it can’t be art.
Put bluntly: skateboarding is not art. Let me explain why I used to think it was, but now know that it isn’t.
I was, like a lot of ancient codgers that are pushing 40 now, one of those weirdos who started skateboarding because I didn’t fit into any other clique/sport/subculture. It was the late ‘80s and skateboarding was pretty loud, graphic, and, for lack of a better word, arty. Thrasher had Pushead, TWS was full of stoned San Diego college kid musings, and the triumvirate of skateboarders that everyone admired — Blender, Gonz, and Natas — were all, legitimately, arty innovators.
But that is not to say that they were artists. It was just that everything was a lot more arty back then.
Around 1987, vert skating was kind of winding down, and street skating’s rules were not yet entrenched. There certainly was a more creative vibe to the activity that manifested not only in the tricks, which were either bionic recapitulations of vert tricks on stationary obstacles (curbs, planters, benches, etc.) or stairs, gaps, and launch ramps.
In other words, you could either skate a bench like a quarterpipe that you ollied up to, do boardslides and slappies on curbs, or go big off stairs and launch ramps, but the three weren’t combined (technical finesse, power, and speed) until the early ‘90s when modern street skating was born. I would argue that this occurs with some Mack Dawg productions such as Sick Boys and early H-Street videos.
Graphically, skateboarding was coming out of the mid-’80s inspired repeating pattern aesthetic (think Vision Gator boards or the medieval manuscript/Albrecht Durer/Chinese meander pattern of Powell VCJ graphics) towards a more hand-drawn aesthetic first pioneered by Neil Blender and Mark Gonzales.
This introduced the notion that skateboarders could be artists, but we have to be very careful here. Skateboarders can do graphics, some can even make art, but skateboarding itself is not an art. I define art as a language that functions on a purely symbolic level. Art is not a tool, like the skateboard.
Skateboarders can do graphics, some can even make art, but skateboarding itself is not an art.
Defined by Raphael Zarka, skateboarding is a ludic, playful activity that is an extended form of play. The skateboard, in many ways a toy, playfully critiques architectural space, but that isn’t the whole point. It is a tool, but not a symbol.
In other words, the thing that separates us from, say, primates, is that we make tools out of things, and we shape the world through our crafts to better suit our needs. It is a short step from making arrowheads, which are an improvement upon the flint rock as a weapon/knife/utensil, and a figurine out of a rock, which may symbolize sexual fertility, abundance, etc. It is the unique ability of humans to see the potential of a rock to embody an image of something else. We do this all the time when we look up at the clouds and imagine something else. Artists do this through making art.
Skateboarding, though it does rely on that way of looking at the world — seeing the potential for a backside noseblunt in a bench that most people would merely see as a seat — shares that human quality that is linked to making art. However, what we do is performative, and if it can be considered a language at all, it is a language that is spoken for and amongst ourselves.
Whereas other art is designed to communicate to the outside world, skateboarding is actually inward-looking. And what we say as skateboarders when we’re skateboarding is significantly less important than what we do as skateboarders. That’s the key difference.
Artists may communicate with one another, paying attention to things that wouldn’t be picked up on by a lay audience, but they are still making something that goes out into the world and is supposed to be seen, understood, and consumed by a wide audience.
Skateboarding doesn’t do that. The outside world isn’t supposed to get it. If you’ve ever been frustrated by seeing a New York Times photographer, for example, completely miss the shot when doing a story about skateboarders, or how mind-blowingly pointless 99% of what is written about skateboarding is when it’s not written for and by skateboarders, you’ll see what I’m talking about.
While we may have a coded and well-protected language that we speak, that language isn’t the point. The act of skateboarding is the point. And this point is often so strong, so compelling, that it somewhat blinds us to the fact that, as skateboarders, we may not be able to pull everything off with the same aplomb that we do our frontside flips.
Skaters-turned–actors, photographers, DJ’s, painters, etc. often, with few exceptions, stand to learn a lot in the other department. The transition from skater to carpenter is never as clean as sponsors may want to make it seem and requires a different set of skills that skateboarding may possibly have prepared them for, but doesn’t necessarily make them capable creators in any other medium.
Knowing that skateboarding isn’t art makes it more enjoyable. From my experience, art is something that you return to, re-read, look at for hours, move through or around, immerse yourself in. It is about slow, contemplative immersion, whose meaning becomes clearer, though never totally defined, over time.
Skateboarding, on the other hand, is about the immediacy of the moment. Wanting to extract some larger sentimental, cultural, or political significance from the act of skateboarding often leads to a lot of hot air (see above) or a dead end. Over-thinking the thing drains it of the joy of doing it.
Art is designed to be over-thought, skateboarding works best when under-thought. Clearly I’m not skateboarding right now, that’s why I’m thinking. I should go skateboarding. So should you.
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January 7, 2019 12:48 pm
You guys are really digging for content here…
January 7, 2019 12:53 pm
Just keep ignoring the Gx1000 assault story. You guys are a fucking let down.
January 7, 2019 1:03 pm
They’re not necessarily a BREAKING NEWS website dude…
January 7, 2019 3:37 pm
they aint gonna touch that one, now if it happened in Brooklyn with a bunch of hip kids around then we would be reading about it here.
January 7, 2019 3:43 pm
please, what is this story?
January 8, 2019 10:42 am
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Skateboard-Attack-Leaves-San-Francisco-Security-Guard-With-Brain-Damage-503888341.html
January 8, 2019 11:24 am
That little bitch deserves to be locked up for a long time.
Fuck all these “tough guy” crews who think it’s so cool to start fights with security guards and act like a spoiled little shit to everyone everywhere. These people are ruining the public perception of skateboarders and just make it harder for the rest of us to skate spots and interact with security when they come to kick us out.
Fuck him
January 8, 2019 12:19 pm
Damn what a loser! Pizza skateboards sucks.. Crazy that people will do stuff like this in order to skate/ get a clip that will be forgotten in 30 mins. Another wallie to hillbomb got you a few in prison. If you don’t wanna get kicked out go to the skatepark ked! Stay Trippy and lit my friend! Hopefully it doesn’t affect GX Ryan is the man.
January 24, 2019 8:55 am
Ryan Garshell is a douche burn out
January 8, 2019 10:27 pm
Just looked it up…pretty sickening. it’s pretty simple: They ask you to leave. You leave. That’s it. There wasn’t a need for that. Christ.
As for the skating is art thing…I’ve actually thought about this question recently. In particular, mulling over the role of perception in skating. The article addresses that, and while it was a good read…hmmm…it’s still an open question for me.
July 31, 2019 8:26 pm
But it’s not your job to take our skateboards and hit us.just call the police and stop acting like a fag
January 7, 2019 1:05 pm
Hola!
Interesting article, finally someone is brave enough to defy the arty farty trend…
I think the author misses that from a Darwinian point of view humans are primates too, and that many (visual) art forms are purely performative so Morita’s piece should be analyzed not only form a semiotic point of view.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
January 7, 2019 1:06 pm
this article is lame, ted barrow needs to study more about what hes talking about and surely needs to understand the concept behind a LANGUAGE. im not surprised since you guys posted a fucking piece of shit article about FREUD and SKATEBOARDING (???) what are you guys trying to come up with? a shit head pseudo-intelectuall mediocre skate magazine? cmon guys, stop trying to be something you arent. keep on the interviews, videos and podcasts and stop with this phony shit, talking about things that you dont really know. its a fucking ridiculous arrogant article made by a phony art historian. i mean, if you believe that “art is a language that functions on a purely symbolic level” you should get some classes on semiology, i mean, for fuck sakes, stop vomiting concepts that you dont understand and be intelectually honest with yourself, Ted.
January 7, 2019 2:30 pm
“yeah but SEMOTICS, BRO” doesn’t disprove anything I’m saying. The moment you bring Barthes into a convo about skateboarding, you’re reaching. I was in undergrad, too. I “got” some classes on “SEMIOLOGY” back then, before grad school.
January 8, 2019 1:46 am
is not about proving or disproving your “argument”, is about you being a douchebag bragging about shit you dont know, making some clickbait articles and spreading misunderstanding around those kids. and dude… reaching? really? https://concreteculture.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/semiology-and-the-urban.pdf for fuck sakes its a 7 page text, every fucking undergrad has read it and its impossible to not make a connection between this and skateboarding, imho. i dont need to be proving anything for you, just need to show you how arrogant and stupid youre being in these pseudo intelectual articles. and so what man i can express myself through bad grammar it doest matter if this is speeeld worng you udnerstand it fucker
and fuck you i didnt sayed a word about barthes, just got my name like that for the laughs and you’re ignoring every point of my comment just so you can masturbate your ego in showing your VAST intellectual knowledge by pointing out that my name is a reference for roland barthes. FUCK YOU ITS A REFERENCE ABOUT GUITAR PEDALS YOU FUCKING FUCK
January 8, 2019 2:01 am
you only answered me? we got 3 pages of comments and you only answered me? only to point out that you got the reference on my nickname?? there are a lot of more articulated comments and you went down straight for the pseudointelectual dick size motherfucking namedropper
January 9, 2019 1:52 pm
Why are you so angry
January 10, 2019 9:58 am
Jesus eslf righteous and smug much? Damn if only everyone was as enlightened and smart as you….
January 11, 2019 3:58 pm
Why are you so angry man? Don’t you like Ted? I bet you are one of those guys who call every progressive person a “liberal arts fag”. What got you so emotionally invested in the article?
Let’s end this one and for all by the way: It’s defined by the motivation; people engage in skateboarding to find the joy of playing, not of creating art. It’s not a sport, because, although promoted as such indirectly, the joy comes from obtaining the level each individual sets for themselves, there is no universally accepted set of skills you need to have. Ted is wrong because anybody can enjoy a clip of Richie Jackson or Rodney Mullen, or a movie like Police Academy 4, Gleaming the Cube or Lords of Dogtown. The difference he notes on communicating are actually differences on marketing during different eras and even then, imagine what it was for people having memories from that era, watching Questionable and Video Days as they came out. So skateboarding is a toy, same as a surfboard or a snowboard.
In summary: you are not appealing to the senses in order to present the world as you perceive it, you are merely trying to achieve goals that you set about yourself in order to feel the fundamental joy of a game, which is essentially the fulfillment of realising your thoughts and goals. It has aspects of sport, to the degree that a sport can be a game, and of art, to the point where you express your own perspective. But it isn’t either, it’s a game, a skateboard is a toy.
December 9, 2021 3:32 pm
I’m what you would call a ‘progressive art f*g” and I still think this article is trash-tier in terms of the quality of its arguments, and I’m operating from the same definition of art as the writer.
The split instant they tried to delineate the skateboard from its symbolic content they showed their ass for not understanding the meaning of the word ‘symbol’, which is why probably you have his aggressive comment about semiotics. It isn’t a regressive take to point out that a progressive position is dubious; (the “left” does this more than it does anything else hence why it gets nothing done).
Like many others have commented here, this skate journo tried to fly above their academic paygrade and ended up showing his ass. This is a problem endemic to journalism, not ‘fine arts studies’. It’s also exemplified when they tried to claim humans weren’t primates, or that primates don’t use symbols. Again following his very own prescribed definition of art as ” a language of symbols “, the very singing of birds and alarm calls of apes fall within this paradigm. That’s because that is the basis of all communication, art is just a subtype of that within this paradigm.
Any toy can be an implement of art because art by virtue of its own processes incorporates play. There’s no straightforward mechanism of communication because the value of symbols is in constant flux. The image of a skateboard to the majority of those who receive it conjures many abstract associations. This is how the human mind works. Pretending those associations and the manner in which someone approaches the discipline are somehow (arbitrarily) distinct from how someone would approach similar performance arts (like acting, and dancing) really demonstrates the flawed appraisal here. Their only qualifier is that they “think about both skateboarding and art” a lot, but they’re pulling ideas out of their butt and not doing the base diligence of properly researching and parsing these conceptions.
TL;DR: If you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t post editorial bait to distract your audience from recent scandal. It just makes you look worse as a publisher