8 Ball Surfboard

1995 - Sculpture (Sculpture)

24H x 7W inches

Alexis Smith

location: Los Angeles, California
year born: 1949
gender: female
nationality: American
home town: Los Angeles, California

In 8 Ball Surfboard (1995),Alexis Smith combines her long-term interests in California culture and conceptual assemblage. The surfboard, an emblem of Southern California, emblazoned with the image of an eight-ball, references numerous tropes and clichés of American popular culture, specifically subcultures related to pool halls, surfing, and beaches. Indeed, this model-scale surfboard may be a future pop-culture relic, referencing a particular surfer or era of board design.


At a moment when Minimalism and Conceptual Art collided, Southern California-based Alexis Smith began working with discarded street signs, matchbooks, movie posters, and other detritus to become one of the pioneers of conceptual assemblage. Her cryptic comments on the cloudy morality of American culture are derived from pop cultural references including political figures like Richard Nixon, Hollywood films, and pop musicians. This borrowing of literally recycled material and recycled cultural tropes is also seen in the work of Smith’s peers Mike Kelley, Chris Burden, and Vija Celmins.


Colors:



Other related works, blended automatically

Iron Sorrows
© » KADIST

Alexis Smith

1990

Iron Sorrows (1990) brings together what are for Alexis Smith common motifs and materials such as scavenged and repurposed metal, and street signage...

Untitled (Joseph T. Robinson Standing at a Podium in a Room), Damaged series
© » KADIST

Lisa Oppenheim

2003

The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...

The Breaks
© » KADIST

Juan Capistran

2002

The Breaks reflects Capistran’s interests in sampling and fusing different cultural, social, and historical sources...

Untitled (Governor of Ohio Judson Harmon), Damaged series
© » KADIST

Lisa Oppenheim

2003

The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...

Telescopic Pole (Tennis Balls Red) and (Tennis Balls)
© » KADIST

Chadwick Rantanen

2010

Telescopic Pole is an adjustable telescopic pole that extends vertically from floor to ceiling and is held up by its own internal pressure...

I Am A Man
© » KADIST

Hank Willis Thomas

2013

The image is borrowed from protests during Civil Rights where African Americans in the south would carry signs with the same message to assert their rights against segregation and racism...

Justice
© » KADIST

Zai Kuning

2014

Justice (2014) presents viewers with a curious assemblage: a wooden gallows with slightly curved spindles protruding from the topmost plank, which in turn is covered with rudimentary netting, the threads slackly dangling like a loose spider’s web or an rib cage that’s been cracked open...

27 Punk Photos: 11. Dim Wanker: F Word, May, 1978
© » KADIST

Bruce Conner

1978

In 1977, as an already-established artist best known for his films, Bruce Conner began to photograph punk rock shows at Mabuhay Gardens, a San Francisco club and music venue...

Open Mind
© » KADIST

Yoan Capote

2007

Open Mind is a model created by Capote for a traversable public maze that, when seen from above, resembles the human brain...

Never Leave Home Without It
© » KADIST

Aaron Young

2007

The artist describes the work as “very performative video-pieces but they take on a more sculptural feel...

Black Hands, White Cotton
© » KADIST

Hank Willis Thomas

2014

Shot in black and white and printed on a glittery carborundum surface, Black Hands, White Cotton both confronts and abstracts the subject of its title...

Knight #6
© » KADIST

Karl Haendel

2011

Haendel’s series Knights (2011) is a set of impeccably drafted, nine-foot-tall pencil drawings depicting full suits of armor...

New Town Ghost
© » KADIST

Minouk Lim

2005

New Town Ghost (2005) is one of Lim’s trio of large-scale video installations...

Untitled (Ruby Downing sitting between two Unidentified Men in a Room), Damaged series
© » KADIST

Lisa Oppenheim

2003

The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...

Back to mother
© » KADIST

Zai Kuning

2014

Concerned with the early history of Singapore, Zai Kuning spent many years living with and researching the history of the Riau peoples who were the first inhabitants of Singapore...

Tapitapultas
© » KADIST

Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker

2012

In Tapitapultas (2012), Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker comment on mass consumerism and pollution by way of a game they invented...

EASTER MORNING
© » KADIST

Bruce Conner

2008

Unlike many of his earlier films which often present poignant critiques of mass media and its deleterious effects on American culture, EASTER MORNING , Conner’s final video work before his death in 2008, constitutes a far more meditative filmic essay in which a limited amount of images turn into compelling, almost hypnotic visual experience...

TWO MILLION (Hong Kong Dollar)
© » KADIST

Kwan Sheung Chi

2013

One Million is a video work depicting the counting of bills...