Luca Vergano, Senior Planner at TBWA\Italy, responded to recently published post by Rob Schwartz, CCO at TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles. Check it out and become part of the conversation.
Ciao.
After reading Rob’s piece on Dogtown and the Z Boys, yesterday night I came home and pulled out Glen E. Friedman photobooks “Fuck You Heroes”, that features the Baby Paul Cullen photograph and “The Idealist”. These books sparked a few other thoughts I thought worth sharing .
The first thought was how in a pre-internet era the skateboarding culture spread everywhere in an incredibly radical way, and its roots ran so deep that still today you can see its fruits. I remember in Turin (my hometown, not exactly on the map until 06 winter olympics) at the end of the 80s had a huge skate scene. Today you can still see kids kicking ollies and flipbacks in the most central square of the city.
The second thought was about skateboarding openness to the outside world.
Many sub-cultures end up being something like a small posse of people kind of cautious of who tries to approach them. Skateboarding broke these intimate boundaries and did it also because of the credibility of its protagonists.
Letting aside Tony Hawke success in the videogame realm, Friedman himself contributed in bringing togheter through its lens quite distant worlds.
He went from shooting skaters to rapstars to more intimate subjects.
There’s a picture he shot about a soldiers peeping out of a tank. This picture could easily be a Don McCullin photo, something unexpected only if you think of Friedman’s background from the mere visual point of the punk shots that made him famous, much less if you know about his political and social commitment.
Stacey Peralta did a similar thing by switching from skate to direction. I haven’t seen it yet, but from a purely ideal point of view, Made In America, his documentary on the Blood and Crips feud it’s a further step in showing people realities precluded to most of the people. Realities he’s been allowed into because of his credibility.
I don’t know what you think, but these are two of the reasons why I still find skateboarding and everything about it so fascinating.
Luca
If you have any comments please email Luca Vergano.
Fincancial Times (FT.com) has recently published an article on recent changes in art brands behave. Things that have been a exceptional just a couple of years ago have moved into the daily business of successful brands. A well managed brand behavior regardless of media channels has become as critical as the understanding of digital. Our world is digital and will not go back to analog. Enjoy what Tim Bradshaw and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson from FT shared with their readers. What it can mean for brands and agencies.
