Against the Grain: Skate Culture and the Camera Touring Exhibition, London 2018

Against the Grain: Skate Culture and the Camera is an exhibition that celebrates the phenomena of skateboarding, with the photographers and filmmakers who documented the movement. Despite the subculture’s influence and resonance in almost every aspect of popular culture, this emblem of freedom and rebellion has been largely ignored as an artistic form.

Dobie Campbell, Palace Originals, Lucian Hendricks, 1985. Crystal Palace

Brought together for the first time, this historical review highlights behind the scene glimpses and cultural shifts associated with skateboarding throughout the past 50 years. Pioneering figures skating Southern California pools and schoolyard banks of the 1970’s are portrayed, as well as devious manipulations of urban architecture shaping new chapters of skateboarding’s evolution.

Sam Muller, Untitled (Chris Maalouf, Montreal), 2015

The exhibition, curated and produced by Frankie Shea and Jaime Marie Davis, includes never been seen photography from the archive of Oscar-winning director Spike Jonze, and Glen E. Friedman – the man who has been coined by Russell Simmons as defining the imagery of hip hop.

Glen E. Friedman, Hanging at Adolph’s in Holmby Hill After School, 1977

Dobie Campbell, whose artist projects include installations at the prestigious Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, as part of Studio Sound: The Black Atlantic Project will be showing photographs from the London’s nascent skate scene in the early 1980s. Transworld Skateboard Magazine editor and former adidas skate team manager Skin Phillips will exhibit photography from Mark Gonzales’ provocative performance at the Stadtisches Museum, Köln, Germany.

Mike O’Meally, Palace Skate Team (Lucien Clarke, Chewy Cannon, Blondey McCoy, Jack Brooks, Danny Brady), Tottenham Hale, 2016

Launching this July in London, the exhibition will tour to North America during 2019, as well as Tokyo in 2020 for the Olympics, when skateboarding will be in the included for the first time. The tour will focus on the skate community and specific history where each exhibition is held, placing it in a broader context of an international scene.

J. Grant Brittain, Todd Swank, Push, 1987

Exhibition opening times: 7—22 July 2018 Tuesday—Sunday, 12—7pm,
Address: 15 Bateman Street, Soho, W1D 3AQ
The exhibition will tour to North America during 2019, as well as Tokyo in 2020 for the Olympics, when skateboarding will be in the included for the first time. The tour will focus on the skate community and specific history where each exhibition is held, placing it in a broader context of an international scene.

Find out more at here.

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