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| BillyBonebrake |
 Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 7:10 pm |
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ORDER OF THE SKULL
Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 7513
Location: The Institute
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Decked Out
By ROB WALKER
Toy Machine Skateboard
"Beautiful Losers'' is an exhibition featuring more than 50 youngish artists who were and are, according to the show's catalog, ''influenced by skateboarding, graffiti, street fashion and independent music.'' It seems peculiar that skateboarding would be a prominent influence for a group of visual artists. But there is little question that over the decades this activity has been around, it has come to be at the center of a specific subculture, aesthetic and maybe even a worldview.
One contributor to ''Beautiful Losers'' (which opens in its third venue, the Orange County Museum of Art, this weekend) is Ed Templeton. A celebrated skateboarder and a successful artist, the 32-year-old Templeton also has his own brand -- Toy Machine Bloodsucking Skateboard Company. Toy Machine primarily sells skateboards, as well as some apparel, like T-shirts and hats. And it offers a window on the curious state of the relationship between skateboard culture and the marketplace. Templeton started Toy Machine back in 1993 -- planning ahead for the day he got too old to skate professionally -- and over the next eight years or so the skateboard idea went thoroughly mainstream. The skateboarder Tony Hawk, for example, became an endorser of everything from Bagel Bites to Mountain Dew, a frequent talk-show guest and the star of a top-selling video-game series. And skate-related apparel has become a big business: for Vans sneakers, of course, but also for DC Shoes, which was bought last year by the surf-oriented retail chain Quiksilver, and for skate-and-clothing brands like Element, Zoo York and Supreme.
The problem for someone like Templeton is that Toy Machine is not about the skateboard idea. It's about selling skateboards themselves, which has been tough in recent years. From 2001 to 2004, the number of skateboard ''decks'' sold annually fell from 7.3 million to 5.3 million, according to Marie Case, managing director of the action-sports market research firm Board-Trac. So how does a company like Toy Machine (which is now part of a multibrand skate firm called Tum Yeto) hold onto a customer base of actual skateboarders?
Board makers must sell an image, one that in many cases is painted right onto the product. The elaborate graphic treatments that individuals and manufacturers have long put on boards to differentiate them probably explain the skate-art connection. (Templeton, who grew up and still lives in the Southern California suburbs, was inspired to create visuals when he realized some of his skater heroes did them.) ''The key to all this,'' Templeton says, ''is that all the boards people are making are all exactly the same. It's all seven-ply hardwood maple.''
What Templeton has always used for Toy Machine is essentially an anti-image image, one that hammers away at the absurdity of advertising to a rebel subculture. Ads for the brand appearing in skateboard magazines are scrawled with slogans like ''Purchase is mandatory'' and ''Would you like a solution for your unhappiness? Make purchases involving Toy Machine.'' A new DVD called ''Good & Evil,'' featuring tricks (and painful-looking failed attempts at tricks) by Toy Machine skateboarders, notes in the end credits: ''Amount of skaters who will be brainwashed into being a loyal Toy Machine pawn . . . 100%.'' And an ad for that video (which is itself largely a promotional item) carries the message ''This is an ad reminding demanding that you buy it or steal it.'' The upshot is that while the skateboard idea sells everything but skateboards, this anti-idea sells skateboards above all else.
Mocking the cliches of the rebel-focused marketing strategies that sell sneakers, sodas and other trappings of the skater ''lifestyle'' makes sense for a company like Toy Machine. But there's something else going on here as well. Templeton recalls the skaters as the only high-school clique that would accept him. Aaron Rose, co-curator of ''Beautiful Losers,'' tells a similar story. And the catalog's introduction takes this community-of-outsiders notion to another level with references to the late 1950's beat heyday and by finding commonalities among figures from Barry McGee, the well-known street artist, to Spike Jonze. Maybe what Toy Machine's image really appeals to, intentionally or not, is a sense of community: it's not just the outsider activity, but the band of fellow-feeling outsiders to share it with. |
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| Christian |
| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 7:32 am |
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Joined: 16 Jul 2003
Posts: 2986
Location: Connecticut
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| was that in Sunday's paper? |
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| BillyBonebrake |
| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:40 pm |
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ORDER OF THE SKULL
Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 7513
Location: The Institute
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| Yes, in the NY Times Sunday magazine. You know, the magazine in the paper. |
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| patsplat80 |
| Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 10:14 am |
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ORDER OF THE SKULL
Joined: 20 Nov 2003
Posts: 1686
Location: brooklyn, NY
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| i sqw that show in SF...good show, the decks being shown were super rad.... |
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