It’s quite exciting for me to see how unskilled skaters could make tricks, somehow much more [exciting] than to see skilled skaters make tricks easily.
Haroshi attributes much of his success to the lessons learned through the DIY ethos of skateboarding. He recalls attempting to master his first ollie. At first, the idea of jumping over a fire hydrant (another object that has appeared in his work) seemed impossible, but after many attempts, falls and injuries, he was gratified by the thought of attaining his goal through sheer willpower. His approach to his artwork is marked by a similar stubbornness. His rise to art-world prominence was a hard-fought one. Haroshi’s intention was never mass
appeal: He says he would have continued doing what he does, even if no one paid attention. Skating taught Haroshi resilience, but it also taught him to never stop having fun.
“Overall, if people can keep doing anything for ten years, [that] makes it real, don’t you think so? Even if you can keep skateboarding for ten years, getting good,” he reflected on the persistence that enabled his success.
When asked about the art or skateboarding scenes in Tokyo, Haroshi had few positive things to say. He has found a much larger audience abroad than at home. Before the October show at StolenSpace there was a solo show at the prestigious Jonathan LeVine Gallery in New York in early 2013 and commissions from HUF and Nike in his recent past.
“I think we lost the originality after Japan lost World War II. It can’t be helped,” said Haroshi with a cynicism he rarely shows. “Our generation won’t wear t-shirts with Japanese letters because it’s frumpy, but we like t-shirts with English letters because it looks cool even if we don’t understand English. ‘Made in USA’ is kind of the brand for our generation. But I think we had better to stop following them anymore, in especially skate culture in Japan. Because if we keep following American [culture], we can never be original.”
Despite Haroshi’s resistance to the worldwide influence of American pop culture, his work has an international appeal that transcends cultural identity—perhaps a product of the same commercialized globalization he dislikes. Whether raised in the U.S., Europe or Japan, most skaters young and old are well versed in the universal lexicon of cartoons, comics, and skateboard graphics. Haroshi’s kinetic and bright (and often goofy) sculptures operate on that collective consciousness. The skate decks
Haroshi and his friends used as kids were emblematic of the DIY culture of his generation, many of whom grew up to be some of the most well-respected artists of today, from Harmony Korine to Shepard Fairey.
“I didn’t even know the name of [the artists] who designed decks when I was child. Now I know those artists. I envy that kind of feel. People don’t know the name but know the artwork well. I’ve been loving old graphics which were produced before I started to make things—like Santa Cruz, Powell, Dogtown, and Zorlac were sick! And the art by Pushead is always cool and a true original,” he said. “I want to be an artist who can satisfy fans for a long time.”
But though Haroshi’s work is emblematic of a cultural moment, it is also a way of connecting with his past. He finds inspiration in the twelfth-century Japanese Buddhist sculptor Unkei, who used a mosaic-style wood sculpting method that Haroshi emulates in his crosshatched sculptures. Like Unkei, who embedded crystal balls into the heart-cavities of his Buddha sculptures to represent the soul, Haroshi hides a broken, metal skateboard part inside each of his works as a sort of spiritual blessing. The broken skateboard parts are a nod to his cultural ancestry, but they are also the relics of ill-fated skate tricks that shatter the boards that end up reborn in Haroshi’s work.
“It’s quite exciting for me to see how unskilled skaters could make tricks, somehow much more [exciting] than to see skilled skaters make tricks easily. It is because there are no rules… I think the most creative thing is skateboarding,” he said. “Isn’t it amazing that a skateboard is just ‘board’ and ‘wheels,’ but it becomes such a great thing?”*
This article first appeared in Hi-Fructose Issue 30, which is sold out. Subscribe to Hi-Fructose today and get our latest issue as part of your subscription here.
