Surf Culture explored in new art exhibit

Art Business News, August, 2003

The art history of surfing--in paintings, posters, photographs, film and artifacts from ancient Peru and Polynesia to the 21st century--is the focus of a new exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Art. Entitled "Surf Culture," the exhibit features more than 100 works that offer an overview of surf culture from all angles.

Featured in the exhibit are artists who surf and surfers who make art, including Ashley Bickerton, Sandow Birk, Jeff Divine, Craig Kauffman, Rick Griffin, Kevin Ancell, Rex Brandt Margaret Kilgallen and Billy Al Bengston.

The museum claims this is the first comprehensive exhibit to deal with the art history of surfing. Organized by the Laguna Art Museum, the exhibit also traveled to The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu.

The exhibit shows how the connection between art and surfing reaches back 3,000 years to Peru, where some of the world's first historians carved bas-reliefs of surfers. It also focuses on the last 40 years, during which time surf culture has exploded as a lifestyle or commodity. Surfer Magazine, Gidget, and the Beach Boys defined a healthy chunk of pre-hippie culture, and psychedelic posters of the late 60s were heavily influenced by surf-style designer John Vax Hammersveld and Surfer Magazine/Zap Comix veteran Rick Griffin. The following decades saw the surfer image plastered on billboards and glossy ads.

The exhibit is accompanied by a 240-page full color catalog.

SHOW FACTS

"Surf Culture: The Art History of Surfing"

Aug. 16 to Nov. 2

San Jose Museum of Art

Address: 110 South Market St. San Jose, Calif.

Phone: (408) 271-6840

Web site: www.simusart.org