SHAUN GLADWELL 'Skaters vs Minimalismo'

Artist: Shaun Gladwell

Exhibition title: Skaters vs Minimalismo
Coordinates: Beatriz Sánchez
Dates: 06.07.2017 to 27.08.2017
Place: CAAM – Los Balcones 9. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Spain.
Hours: Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 9pm. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Produce: Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno. Cabildo de Gran Canaria

Free admission

Skateboards vs Minimalism is a project where I operate as much as a curator as I do an artist. I bring three of my favourite skateboarders into a direct relationship with several of my favourite artists from the school of minimalist sculpture.

The skateboarders Jesus Esteban, Hillary Thompson and Rodney Mullen come up against the likes of Donald Judd, Carl Andre and Tony Smith and Ellsworth Kelly. The project looked at the dynamic between artists and skateboarders, and particularly the forms in which skateboarders use. Often the work from the late 60’s within the school of minimalism has a striking resemblance to objects that are used for skateboarding in skateparks. The skatepark objects are usually generic, simplified and abbreviated forms within the urban landscape, so the skateboarder’s would be very well trained even before getting into the project, in which they skateboard on replica minimalist artworks.

The project is playful in its irreverent relationship to value in art and also seeks to celebrate the value of use over that of exchange or assigned value. The project uses music by Philip Glass as he was the musical equivalent to the forms in which my favourite skateboarders launch into action on the sculptures. Again the project is a part of a longer series of works and research, which do not make the distinction between artists and athletes.