We're Totally Not Board

Skateboard art isn't what it used to be. Although we liked the skull-and-roses thing pretty well, the scene went and grew up, and it's better now. The world of graffiti-based painting and drawing has also fundamentally changed. At a new exhibit, "Fairfax and Haight," witness the continuing visual mission to seek out new worlds and new inspiration through the eyes of furious, brokenhearted teenagers. This stuff is smart and sad, and draws on suburb-debris, or jailbait, or the grace of violence for subject matter. So drop your jaw when you look at it, but be aware that not too long ago, all the artists here would have been labeled moron thugs and criminals lite. Coachella Valley brother artists the Date Farmers, photographer Deanna Templeton, printmaker and installationist Jung-Il Hong, and the muralizing collective of Faile, Swoon, and David Ellis appear as curated by Marsea Goldberg, director of the no-other-word-for-it visionary New Image Art gallery in Los Angeles.
March 20-May 28, 2008