riding modern art

For ten years, Raphaël Zarka has been collecting photographs of skateboarders on public works of art published in magazines or on websites devoted to skateboarding. It is a reflection on sculpture within the framework of a more general questioning of the notion of public space and the “practices of spaces” of the inhabitants, close to the reflections of Michel de Certeau. “Passersby, art critics, history, judge works of art on aesthetic and conceptual criteria (it is beautiful or it is interesting). The criteria of skateboarders are above all mechanical: the interest of a sculpture lies in the variety of movements it suggests. More irreverent than vandalistic, this practice of the work of art underlines the explicit dynamism of a whole section of modern sculpture. On mostly abstract and geometric sculptures, of cubo-futurist or constructivist inspiration, the skaters give effect to the idea of movement literally implemented by the artists. » Raphael Zarka Some images are missing from this collection, the sculptors having refused the reproduction of their works. The spaces dedicated to the corresponding images have been deliberately left vacant.