The Stories Their Skateboards Could Tell

Each deck is less than an inch thick, but otherwise unique from all the rest, distinguished only by colorful decals and artwork on an underside scratched and worn from use. The studio is filled with hundreds of decks, stacked like firewood. They lean on one another for support and sometimes spill across the floor in a clattering, chromatic burst.

And when the artist, Haroshi, cuts them into shapes from his imagination, and glues the new shapes into sculptures that rise anywhere from a few inches to many feet, they become art — expensive, curated art. Haroshi has done commissions for Nike, Apple and others. This fall, his work was featured at a New York gallery.

On the wall of his sawdust-sprinkled work room is a piece he has not finished for Tony Hawk. (“Four years,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”)

“Historically, Japan has been an isolated island,” Haroshi said. “We have been using what has come from abroad. To me, the sculpture is an interpretation of skateboarding coming from America.”

His beard hung to his collarbone and he was dressed like a skateboarder — khaki pants, plain white T-shirt, a black cap spun backward. Haroshi has tattoos on each arm and big holes in each earlobe. In the United States, he would blend in.

“But in Japan, I am very different,” he said with a laugh.

In an upstairs apartment above his workshop, the shelves are lined with art books, including those highlighting pop-art icons like Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. Haroshi explained how the Japanese have a deep-rooted, postwar affinity for American culture, from Coke to skateboarding. Look how many young Japanese wear T-shirts with English on them, he said, even if they do not understand the words.

Haroshi worries that the Olympics will sanitize skateboarding.

“In my generation, young people on the fringes either went into motorcycle gangs or into skateboarding,” Haroshi said. “Skateboarding was regarded as something that young criminals do.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/sports/olympics/japan-skateboarding-tokyo-olympics.html?emc=rss&partner=rss