Avant-garde art is usually associated with underground artists who seek to communicate their subversive messages in a discreet manner, often through installations, painting or art projects.
Japanese underground art is quite offbeat and can surprise International audiences with its uniqueness and freshness of perspectives. Haroshi, the famous Japanese sculptor exhibited his new sculptures made from skateboards. The HUF x Haroshi x DLX Opening Ceremony was held at Los Angeles on the 7th of January and attracted a lot of skate board fans and others as well.
The sculptures are very unique, as all the 5 of them are made from skateboards themselves and seem to communicate a certain message to the society. The sculpture that gives the flip sort of communicates a nonchalant attitude towards populist and mainstream ideas which are forced down the throats of those who think differently.
Indeed, skateboards are usually associated with young people who are rebellious, who disregard safety of themselves and others and also those who may not value time. Skateboarding on streets is frowned upon and the youth are usually encouraged to engage in boarding only in designated spaces. This unreasonable restraining of a fun activity seems to be questioned, but of course that is just one view. Haroshi has used spotted OG skateboard pieces in order to create a dog, a sculpture of a hand giving the flip, a guitar, a tire and probably a water pipe.
The sculptures were exhibited in a gallery where pictures of skateboarding in their photographic splendour were exhibited as well. The combination of skateboard photographs and these unique sculptures seem to show the middle finger to those who have branded skateboarding as a useless and lazy activity of the American bourgeois youth. The negative connotations that are attached to skateboarding seem to be questioned in these objects of art.
You could also take a look at the Skatepark, which was a similar art project that explored the context of skateboarding. If you find all this art really heavy, you can feast on Bacon Skateboard.