Monday, November 21, 2011

Board at NGV

I was on my way to Flinders St train station just looking for a loo to be perfectly honest when I pushed the pram past this new exhibition at NGV Studio and had to stop. Dedicated to skateboards of the 1970s and 1980s I felt like I'd stepped out of Dante's Inferno (The Portaloos outside Art Play) and into a couple of square meters of total serenity. Few things look as good on a museum wall as a collection of banged-up boards. It's not rocket science: it's called contrast. But seeing the worn down wheels and scratched decks against the pristine walls was magic plain and simple. I'm not going to project narrative on inanimate objects (as in every board tells a story) but you could just sense the good times.

For a graphic designer who loitered around skate parks in my teens this exhibition brought the past and present into perfect union. I still want to scratch my eyeballs to remove some of the disturbing images from down by the Yarra. They are still sitting on my retinas. But I might have missed stumbling across this show. Believe it or not, it was worth it.

Board
NGV Studio
Federation Square
12 November – 5 February 2012

6 comments:

  1. I can't recommend the show highly enough. If I was handing out ribbons it would get a blue one, a number 1. I'm going to the public program events on this one.

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  2. Let me know when the PP is on..i would love to join you!! xx

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  3. Hey- I noticed it from the window of MoVida Nextdoor across the road on Sunday evening and thought the same thing. Eye-catching:-)

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  4. Great post. Tell us more about the Yarra ;)

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  5. The Yarra. In one word? Disinhibited.

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