Basquiat, Warhol, Hirst. These could be yours but they’ll cost you a pretty penny. Photo: ArtNet
Andy Warhol once defined art as, “what you can get away with.” The silver-haired, fame-obsessed pop artist got away with a lot – he desensitized the art world through a mass-produced, robotic redefinition of what art could be. The Campbell’s Tomato Soup can? No talent there. No master brushstrokes like a classical Rembrandt. But an idea. It was social commentary on the mass consumerism of America.
As art evolved and died and was born again, it traversed meaning, belied boundaries, and became a part of everyday life. Warhol’s prints are plastered on t-shirts at Urban Outfitters, Jeff Koons’ balloon dogs decorate corporate lobbies, and Banksy is a household enigma. And now, the world’s greatest contemporary artists are extending their reach into the niche worlds of surfing and skateboarding.
Artnet, a popular arts world news blog and online auction platform, is featuring skateboards and surfboards plastered with works from some of the greatest artists of modern day. There are skate decks blasted with the primitive scribbles of Jean-Michel Basquiat, the faceless figures of Keith Haring, Warhol’s prints of Marilyn Monroe, Takashi Murakami’s playful drawings, and Damien Hirst’s monotonous dot paintings.
The only surfboard in the auction comes courtesy of Tim Bessell, the shaper and artist behind Bessell surfboards. The work, titled “Heart & Soul,” comes on a 9’6″ epoxy resin rhino-chaser. It features a skeleton in Bic-pen blue – sorta like a tattoo outline before they begin stabbing with a needle. And how much is this shreddable piece of contemporary art gonna cost you? The estimated bidding starts at $7,000 – $9,000.
Hard to imagine any of these artists (aside from Bessell, possibly) actually surfing on one of their boards, let alone pulling into maxing out Pipe on a rhino-chaser featuring their work, or busting a kickflip on one of their signature decks. It’s also hard to imagine actual surfers or skaters using boards that cost 10k. More of a hang-it-on-the-wall type of thing. Which would be pretty damn baller…maybe once I win the lotto.
