The Skateboarding Art - Introduction

An excerpt from the new book by T. Jonathan Colberg. Purchase the entire book at www.lulu.com or www.amazon.com "This is not the first book written in celebration of skateboarding. Today countless articles, magazines, websites, and books are readily available thanks to skateboarding’s global popularity and the speed of electronic communication. Often these publications invoke the term 'art' as well. Many, however, applaud skateboarding mostly as a means to larger ends, whether artistic, didactic, or even spiritual. Despite good intentions, these sorts of indirect praise may become distractions from a deep appreciation of the riding itself. Setting them aside is the first step in establishing the mission of this book. This book is not a consideration of the skateboard as a three dimensional artwork, nor of the two dimensional graphics printed on its bottom. This book often draws upon skate photos, videos, and films as evidence to support its arguments, but does not aim to judge them as artworks in their own right. This book is not simply a chronicle of my personal skateboarding history. Instead, this book aims to describe what skateboarding is. Skateboarding is art. There is no figure of speech here; it is not merely 'artistic' or 'like the arts.' Skateboarding is art, coequal with drawing and painting, sculpture, music, dance, theater, or film. Like all art, its value arises simply and directly from being what it is; nothing more, nothing less."

Channel: YouTube Video Length: 1m 45s Date Found: Sun, Aug 29 2010 5:54 AM Category: Home Video Date Produced: Mon, Aug 23 2010 1:39 PM View Count: 0