Much more than a sport, skateboarding is a lifestyle, this famous lifestyle straight from California (in the United States, skate culture comes mainly from the poor neighborhoods of Venice), a vocation for rebelliousness, a remedy for loneliness. This is what the exhibition tells us Skateboard Culture curated by Morgan Bouvant et Sébastien Carayoland produced by Black Flag. On December 7 and 8, skating enthusiasts will be able to meet in the 78 Temple gallery, nestled in the Marais district of Paris, to discuss skate culture as a whole: a sport that has quickly extended to the expression of an art of being and appearing in the world. If it was once perceived as a rather niche counterculture, skateboarding is now dubbed by the general public as a sporting competition, particularly since its entry into the catalog of disciplines at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020. This unique window on the world allowed sport to gain real recognition and attract the attention of new fashion brands, who were quick to try their hand at skatewear… A trend which was reaffirmed this summer during the Paris 2024 Games.
© J. Grant Brittain
Skate culture is revealed in the Marais
Skateboarding is not new. It emerged in the early 1950s in California as a practice derived from surfing. Surfers in fact had the idea of adapting the famous sensation of sliding on asphalt, thus creating the “first asphalt surfers” by adding four wheels to the surface. board. Like maritime sport, skateboarding determines for those who practice it a unique relationship with the world and its territories. Urban spaces which reveal unsuspected potential and beauty for those who are not used to observing them. Fortunately, a good number of artists curious to try their hand at it have captured them through their lens. In the cinema, we think of Larry Clark (Kids, Wassup Rockers) et Gus Van Sant (Paranoid Park), obviously, but also Catherine Hardwicke (Lords of Dogtown), Crystal Moselle (Skate Kitchen) or even Jonah Hill (90’s) more recently. Thus, the exhibition audience Skateboard Culture will delve into extraordinary images with videos, documentaries and fiction (including the French film Olliedu Périgourdin Antoine Bessein preview) presented during the event in partnership with Paris Surf and Skate Festival. This follows the publication of a beautiful book by Éditions du Chêne, a veritable mine of information, photographs and exclusive interviews on the subject.
In addition to the seventh art, the board has also left a strong mark on photography, music, design and fashion in recent decades. So many facets that we will enjoy discovering during this Parisian weekend, where the photos of J. Grant Brittainpresent in the work, will be exhibited for the first time in France. In short, a unique opportunity to admire the work of one of the most emblematic photographers of the new wave of the 1970s. All bathed in the emblematic sounds of skate culture of the time and today.
Skateboard Culturean exhibition open with free admission, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., December 7 and 8, 2024, at 78 rue du Temple, 75003, Paris.
