Page 13 - SMCK Magazine - Issue #01

Majerus built a skate bowl at the inter- national art exhibition Documenta in Kassel, Germany, which was open to the public and frequently used by well known “skate heroes.”
“Mini ramps” or skate performances have increasingly become part of exhi- bitions and art festivals. Parallel with street art, the styles of skate graphics have experienced a “gallerisation.”
In a complementary manner, the skate- graphic market has started to adapt subjects and stylistic strategies from art.
CZ: Authenticity, style, gesture: these criteria are well-known from the art world. Can you apply these criteria to skateboard artists?
VS: Maybe skateboarding is a caricature of the art world. Both fields—art and skating—are shaped by the idea of au- thenticity, and ultimately by the con- cept of the “genius.” The skater who can expose his aesthetic-sportive practice as an undisguised expression of the conflict between himself and the (urban) environment is considered ori- ginal, has a signature, is considered au- thentic and, in colloquial terms, is a “brand.”
Skateboarding reveals the fabrication of the “real” in the moment when “ori- ginality” unfolds in a product-aesthetic form. And this aesthetic also has a cer- tain gender...
CZ: ... namely the male. How do you see the tendency of this “postmodern” sport in terms of gender? Can skate- boarding still be rebellious in this di- rection ?
VS: The “culturalization” of skateboar- ding was actually a masculinization. Be- fore the era of Dogtown (read the book!) it was far less male. Roughly speaking, skateboarding is more gen- der-inclusive the closer it gets to the
sports field: when it takes place on “legal” terrain rather than areas “stolen from the city.”
Certain regulations also curtail the male “right of the loudest.” Skateboarding qualified for the Olympic Games as the result of a standardization of move- ments on a standardized terrain, and this is manifested through the highly ar- tificial parcours and the optimized “street furniture.”
However, the saga of the independence and freedom that is still strongly asso- ciated with skateboarding may change with its “sportification.” Perhaps espe- cially if social circumstances change. The future is still open, surprising, and can be shaped—that’s my conclusion in Dogtown.
Dr. Phil. Eckehart Velten Schäfer teaches sports sociology at the European Sports Academy Pots-
dam. His book
“Dogtown and X-Games: The Real History of Skateboar- ding” has re- cently been published by transcript Ver- lag.
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"Frontside Ollie" by Velten Schäfer. Photo: Joker