Preview
32-INCH CANVAS
Runs September 25 to October 9
Circa Showroom (536 Ninth Ave. S.E.)
Giant 45 is giving Calgarians something to be stoked about. The local clothing and record boutique is presenting a group exhibition featuring some of the most innovative artists of our generation.
32-Inch Canvas is a show promoting art and design influenced by skateboard and street culture. The travelling exhibit is the first of its kind, displaying original artwork by 65 of the world’s best graffiti, graphic and fine artists.
Mike Grimes, curator and co-owner of Giant 45, came up with the unique concept for the show after receiving blank skate decks as payment for designing a skateboard catalog. Instead of keeping the decks for his shop, he decided to distribute them to artists who’ve had a direct impact on skateboard culture. Grimes instructed the artists to use the decks as they would a canvas, and create a hand-painted piece of artwork.
What originally started as a small idea soon snowballed, and many high-profile artists such as New York graffiti legend Zephyr, pro-skater Andy Howell, skateboard designer Michael Leon and Chicago painter Cody Hudson came on board.
"I’m not sure how much skate culture influenced me," Hudson says. "I guess by default growing up around it, I had no choice but to take bits and pieces from it. But I don’t consider my paintings skate art, I just happen to be a painter that still skates – even though I’m old and brittle."
One of the first to sign on to the project was Calgary-born artist Geoff Mcfetridge. His Los Angeles company Champion Graphics has done work for big clients such as Nike and Marc Jacobs as well as the title sequences for the films The Virgin Suicides and Adaptation.
"These artists are so design-forward and have opened up the boundaries of design," Grimes says enthusiastically. "Skateboarding, in my opinion, has had the most impact on the next level (in design). You can usually find out what’s going to happen in the world of commercial art through checking out what’s going on in skateboarding and skateboard decks."
The Montreal collective known as Heavyweight are among the many artists involved with the show. Although known for large murals and for working with six-by-six-foot canvases, the group found it relatively easy to scale down their designs to fit their 32-inch workspace.
Graphic designer and one-third of the Heavyweight crew, Tyler Gibney, explains why the skateboard lifestyle is so synonymous with cutting-edge design.
"I grew up in skateboarding culture – and in the pages of Thrasher magazine," he says. "My earliest artistic expression was painting my skateboard – so there was a huge influence. Skateboarding is at the heart of pop culture – the riders are all young – and for the most part the graphics of boards change season to season, so it’s a direct relation of the culture of the time."
Heavyweight painter Gene Pendon agrees and says that the shift in street art began when skate companies started to focus more on board design.
"In the ’80s, Powell Peralta, Santa Cruz were dropping more iconography and illustration and branding items with graphics that you could make stickers out of, or put on a T-shirt as well as a board," Pendon says. "Vision (skateboards) and (pro-skater and artist) Mark Gonzales had that different look, and approached the entire board in its design, not just slapping a logo or illustration on it."
One of the originators of the street-art movement is legendary graffiti artist Zephyr – a name that comes from a brand of skateboards. When he first started in 1974, graffiti art was considered a subculture, literally beginning in the underground subway tunnels of New York City.
"I first caught the graffiti bug at the age of 13," he remembers. "If you want to see what NYC looked like at that time, check out the photo book by Norman Mailer called The Faith of Graffiti. For me, seeing what one sees in that book and what I saw live, I knew I had to get down. There was no other option. I knew immediately that kids were doing this very public form of writing and I had to throw my hat into the ring."
There has been a lot of discussion over the progression of street art. What was once considered a "lowbrow" art form (tagging walls and wheat-pasting posters), is now finding its way into museums and fine art galleries. However, Heavyweight artist Dan Buller feels that street art should be viewed in its own context, rather than judged by the standards set by the traditional art world.
"Most people don’t understand that there’s no real growth process there, no evolution of art theory like Darwinism or anything," Buller says. "Fine art isn’t a goal to be sought after or some destination that will inevitably be reached."
That’s why a show like 32-Inch Canvas is an important document, because it gives an insider’s look into a culture that has managed to defy the boundaries between art and product, design and function. Skate and street art is responsible for setting so many of the trends that define mainstream pop culture – everything from advertising to fashion to video games.
"It’s almost out of control," Hudson says. "I hope it can keep going because it’s good to see friends of mine make a decent living off of it, but like anything, it will fall out of favour with the marketing people some day. When that happens, there will always be skaters and artists, but we just might be able to get rid of the McDonald’s extreme-street-art value meals and get back to the important stuff." |
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