THE BIG FLIP: The Art of SkateboardingContemporary Art Museum Plainview
March 16 thru June 10, 2018
My work is fueled by nostalgia. I try to stay connected to the things that I found amazing as a child. I try not to forget that the very thought of dinosaurs actually existing is fantastic…”
Michael Sieben on Art, Skateboarding and the Art of Skateboarding, Threadless, April 2016 by Carlyn Hill
Michael Sieben, Hill goes on to say that “Sieben may be the greatest modern example of the art and skateboarding worlds coming together in perfect harmony”. A real jack of all trades, writer, artist and skateboarder, Sieben is managing editor for Thrasher Magazine and a writer at Juxtapoz Magazine. Sieben’s books include the 2009 There’s Nothing Wrong with You (Hopefully) and illustrations in the 2013 version of L. Frank Baum’s classic story Wizard of Oz. On top of all that Sieben is a founding member of Okay Mountain Collective, an Austin Texas based artists collective known for their immersive installations. Brian Gibb, director of The Public Trust gallery in Dallas writes that Okay Mountains’ Arthouse sponsored installation Corner Store at PULSE Miami 2009 was the greatest thing he’s ever seen. “It was so smart, so funny and people devoured it.”
Top: Photo by Sandy Carson, courtesy of the Visual Arts Center in the Dept. of Art UT
Bottom: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz illustrated edition of L. Frank Baum’s classic
CAMP was fortunate enough to convince Sieben to work with us and co-curate the exhibition. We are excited about exploring the different avenues of self-expression from within the skateboarding culture, from commercial to the conceptual and even into the performative.
Don Pendleton:
Don Pendleton is an American artist, Grammy Award winning designer and illustrator who lives and works out of Dayton, Ohio. Maintaining the fine line between focusing on painting and fine art and working with large clients on commercial projects, he is described in a 2017 Thrasher magazine interview with Sieben as.” one of the most prolific artists and skate-graphic designers in the history of this whole damn thing.” Pendleton was born and raised in Ravenswood, West Virginia where his first influence was his father’s art. He started drawing at the age of 9 and completed a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Arts at Marshall University in 2004.
Taking all the art jobs he could find in an effort to build his portfolio, Pendleton worked early on at several newspapers and publications, focusing on copy editing, layout, design and illustration. It was during the mid-90s that much of his current style was being developed. He cut his teeth at Alien Workshop, spending the better part of the next decade manning the graphics, clothing design, t-shirt designs and even the company’s website.
In 2005 Pendleton accepted an offer to help direct the graphics at Element Skateboards. Doing so from his home base in Dayton, Ohio while making regular trips to California for art and development meetings. During this tenure at Element Pendleton continued to participate in live painting projects and exhibits, traveling through much of the U.S. and Europe for murals, events and art shows.
In 2008, Don was featured in a documentary from Bob Kronbauer entitled, ‘Little Giants.’ The film, distributed by Mumble Magazine, explored Pendleton’s work and life.
His art has been exhibited across the globe in various exhibits and shows and has been featured on the cover of Juxtapoz Magazine. He has also had several solo exhibits, “A Heart as Heavy as Night,” and “The Reflected Sound of Everything” at AR4T Gallery in Laguna Beach, California and “Fine Lines,” a solo museum show at the Huntington Museum of Art in June of 2014. That same year Pendleton won a Grammy for his design work on the Pearl Jam album, “Lightning Bolt”. He has participated in over 40 group exhibits and had skateboard graphics as a part of the Beautiful Losers traveling exhibit. He has also hosted workshops as part of skateboard related exhibits at various museums throughout the world.
His client list continues to grow. Aside from his volumes of work with Alien Workshop and Element Skateboards, he has worked with Pepsico, Mountain Dew, Oakley, Vans shoes, Volcom clothing, Pearl Jam, DC Shoes, LG Electronics, Nike, Burton and Logitech.
When he’s not traveling, Don can be found painting in his studio in Dayton, in front of his computer working on graphics, playing his guitar or out in the streets riding his skateboard.
Lori Damiano:
Lori Damiano is an animator, author & educator based in Portland, Oregon. Earning a master’s degree in experimental animation from The California Institute of the Arts, Damiano currently teaches in the Animat¬ed Arts Program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. She is notably the Animation Department Chair for the California State Summer School for the Arts. Damiano’s animation department credits include Getting Nowhere Faster. A 2003 Villa Villa Cola documentary. The Work of Director Spike Jonze 2004, as writer, producer, director of Lord I: The Records Keeper in 2013 and Lady Secrets in 2015. Just to name a few …and Damiano has been described as skating like a madwoman.
Villa Villa Cola began in 1996 as a collective of female artists, filmmakers, skateboarders and photographers making zines, films and videos encouraging more girls to skate.
When we were very little kids, my Dad started my brother and I off by giving us prompts to draw on paper placemats when we were waiting for our food to arrive at restaurants. I loved visual storytelling ever since. In art and in life am fascinated and inspired by my fellow humans. I love people watching. I love people. I am amazed at how much can be communicated in a single moment of observation and seek to capture that in an image.
I like making images that are based on real things, places, or people because I think those are little anchors of invitation and familiarity. I think of making a painting as throwing a party to celebrate some aspect of humanity.
My favorite way of working is trying to paint portraits of good intentions, aspirations, compassion, confidence, even when that portrait sometimes involves a portrayal of slight underachievement. I like the gap between intention and reality. I think that space is a treasure trove from which springs much of the most fascinating human behavior.
Skateboarding has been a really big part of my life and especially the time I spent with a group of ladies as part of the Villa Villa Cola skateboarding collective. We made a lot of zines, videos and films about female skateboarders and I used to have columns in The Skateboard Mag and Transworld skateboarding.”
Aaron Hegert:
Aaron Hegert is currently a Texas Tech University visiting professor. He received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Indiana University. Hegert was a Fulbright Fellow from 2008-2009 in Paris, France. He is one of the three founding members of Everything is Collective, a photography exhibition which includes works that are not considered to be finished, but instead an invitation for the public to engage in a dialogue. They aim to explore the potential of contemporary photography, since they believe that every aspect of the art is in constant transition.
One of the subplots that remains constant in Hegert’s work is his ongoing attempt to look simultaneously through photography, and also at it. Themes of subversion and appropriation are common in his practice, and his projects usually revolve around some kind of a re-interpretation. His works have been shown nationally, internationally, online, and IRL.
Everything Is Collective (E.I.C.) is an ongoing collaboration between three artists: Aaron Hegert, Jason Lukas, and Zachary Norman. Since 2013 the group has worked together on numerous exhibitions, publications, and web-based projects, all of which address contemporary issues in photography and image culture. Their practice is truly collaborative, and all the works they create are attributed to the group as a whole. E.I.C. has exhibited their work around the world including exhibitions at Filter Space in Chicago, Next Art Gallery in Sweden, and the Urban Arts Space at Ohio State University. Their most recent publication Deliberate Operations #3 [Full Empty] has been shortlisted for the Anamorphosis Prize and added to the collection of the MoMA Library.
“Contemporary photography (at least within some of its sub-genres) is in an in-between state, one where the viewer of photography commonly deploys two conflicting systems of reading simultaneously. On the one hand, we now consider photographs to have a high possibility, even probability, of having been digitally manipulated – to the point where we judge photographs to be false until proven true. On the other, we still bring with us an expectation of some sort of indexicality within the photograph, an assumption that it will accurately depict something outside of itself. In this work I approach these conflicting systems, this grey area, as a practicable dimension in photography, one where the photographic image can function as both a reflection of one set of circumstances and the initiation of another.”
Jared Steffensen:
Jared Steffensen Curator at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art where he has also served as the Curator of Public Engagement and Curator of Education. He was born in Fairfax, Virginia, earning a BFA in Intermedia Sculpture from the University of Utah in 2002 and an MFA from The University of Texas at Austin in 2006. He was a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant in 2006 and he developed and implemented UMOCA’s Artist-in-Residence program, which gives long-term support to local artists. His work has been exhibited throughout the US, as well as in Mexico, Germany, and The Netherlands.
Steffensen’s career as an artist and curator began when he lived in Heidelberg, Germany in the mid-1980s. He had a transformative experience while visiting the Pompidou Center in Paris, where he first saw Knife Ship, a towering sculpture of a Swiss army knife turned Norse longship by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. “There was something about the fact that I could walk all the way around it that clicked with me,” he reminisces. “It made me realize that the artist had to consider every angle and vantage point while making the sculpture, and that appealed to me.”
“I’m interested in the potential of objects to have use beyond their intended purpose, and I usually end up using whatever material it takes to realize my ideas,” he says. “I bounce around from wood to fabric to plastic to digital works on paper. I’m all over. The work is an examination of movement, with a focus on landscape and architecture, as the means by which we interact with and comprehend the places we exist. We travel through these areas on predetermined paths, each providing a glimpse, but not always an engagement, with what is around us as we move from location to location. It originates from the fracturing of these pathways, opening up the possibilities of the paths beyond their intended use that allows for new ways of seeing, interacting and understanding place.
Steffensen has been inspired by the practice of skateboarding since 1986 when he began to practice it. Now, the pastime has become the subject for his work. “I wanted to shift my focus to skateboarding instead of just using it as a place to begin.”
The trick for staying inspired is to keep in touch with his younger self, which his children help him to do. “I try to keep up with them to stay inspired,” he says. “I still go skateboarding, which is much harder to do in your 40s.”
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