The American artist Paul McCarthy has collaborated with the Brussels-based charity initiative, The Skateroom, to create a series of skateboard designs for charity, the Wall Street Journal has reported. This skate culture oeuvre by the artist – numbering eleven McCarthy-designed skateboard decks – depicts images from the artist’s PROPO series.
Speaking about this new series of images, McCarthy told MoMA, “Between 1972 and 1983, I did a series of performances that involved masks, bottles, pans, uniforms, dolls, stuffed animals, etc. After the performances, these objects were either left behind or they were collected and stored in suitcases and trunks to be used in future performances. In 1983, the closed suitcases and trunks containing these performance objects were stacked on a table and exhibited as sculpture. In 1991, I opened the suitcases and trunks and photographed each item. The group of photographs in their entirety was titled PROPO.”
According the Belgian non-profit organisation’s website, Skateroom “invites contemporary artists to interpret skate culture by creating art on skateboards. The Skateroom produces, promotes and sells these limited edition skateboards…[to] support non-profit projects that empower children through skateboarding and art.”
Each $30,000, or £19,844 set, which is limited to an edition of 35, includes wheels, trucks, bolts and transparent grip-tape, all packaged in a custom-made flight case. All proceeds from the organisation’s collaboration with the artist will go towards the international NGO Skateistan, which is constructing a skateboarding and cultural centre for underprivileged children in Johannesburg, South Africa.
This latest project may be more popular than the artist’s previous endeavour; when late last year McCarthy featured heavily in the news due to his sculpture entitled ‘Tree’ which was on display at the Place Vendome in Paris, France – it was a massive, green, inflatable sculpture on the famous Paris square and has raised a storm for its resemblance to a sex toy – resulting in the artist even being attacked in the street; after being slapped by an irate Parisian. The sculpture was reduced to a flaccid lump of plastic on Paris’s swankiest square after vandals attacked the work.