SURFBOARD ARTWORK SERIES
Leading artists Ed Ruscha, jenny Holzer, Katharina Grosse, Keiichi Tanaami, Kenny Scharf and Rosemarie Trockel create limited edition surfboard art pieces to support Parley’s Global Cleanup Network
Surfing, activism and art are all fundamental parts of Parley’s DNA – so we brought all three together to help raise awareness and fundings for the ocean cause. Both artists and surfers are drawn to the waves, and by collaborating we can draw inspiration from both worlds – and help protect coastal ecosystems for future generations. Art is the universal language, therefore the artist is at the core of the Parley movement. Equally vital to the mission is a group that knows the oceans like no others: surfers. This board unites the worlds of art and surfing as a messenger for the cause. It is a symbol and call for the eco-innovation, creativity and collaboration that can protect our oceans.
Created on Firewire surfboards, the works are generally auctioned or sold in limited-edition runs to support our ocean protection work. Parley collaborator Firewire is at the forefront of innovation in the surf industry – their Timbertec Eco-boards are made with sustainably sourced wood and bio-resin, which reduces their carbon footprint by over 35% versus traditionally built surfboards.
“I understand a painting as something that, as we view it, travels through us and realigns our connections with the world”
KATHARINA GROSSE
Ed Ruscha
The first artwork in the series was a limited-edition surfboard customized by contemporary artist Ed Ruscha, inspired by his original painting “The amazing earth“ (1984). Ruscha’s words arise from some inscrutable context, and often refer to urban American life and culture – but also in this case, to our mutual, amazing planet.
Katharina Grosse
Next to take on the challenge was leading artist Katharina Grosse – known for an artistic practice that boldly challenges viewers' perception of space. Her brightly-colored series was created directly on surfboards to support Parley’s Global Cleanup Network, with each a unique piece of surfable artwork. Fittingly, Grosse herself once compared the perception of her abstract color environments to a surfing experience: “It's an amazing feeling to swim through swirling underwater sandstorms while the water shapes the land.” Read More
Photography by Jens Ziehe © Katharina Grosse and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2019
Rosemarie Trockel
Next, German artist Rosemarie Trockel created 20 limited-edition surfboards titled Albatros, based on one of the most celebrated poems by Charles Baudelaire. It comes from the second edition volume of Les Fleurs du Mal, in which Baudelaire recounts the grace of the “king of the sky” in flight and its misfortunes on land, alluding to the artist and poet in their creative worlds contrasted to the mundanity of daily life. Albatrosses glide above the waves as do surfers, imbued with the forces of the oceans. Indeed, albatross, surfer and poet are "winged voyagers”, their spirits colliding in this artwork.
Rosemarie Trockel is widely regarded as one of the most influential and important conceptual artists in Germany. Her sculptures, collages, ceramics, knitted works, drawings and photographs are noted for their subtle social critique and range of subversive, aesthetic strategies — including the reinterpretation of “feminine” techniques, the ironic shifting of cultural codes, a delight in paradox, and a refusal to conform to the commercial and institutional ideologies of the art system. Read More
Photography by Tom Wagner — Model Grace Risch — Art Directed by Rosemarie Trockel
Kenny scharf
Internationally acclaimed artist Kenny Scharf customised 12 individually painted surfboards in support of Parley’s effort to end marine plastic pollution. All proceeds will benefit Parley’s Global Cleanup Network with a special focus on protecting the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico where the artist has spent numerous years and where Parley has been active since 2017. Each piece was hand shaped in collaboration by legendary surfboard maker Tim Bessell.
Kenny Scharf has been collecting plastic waste from the shorelines since the 80s, often using it to form playful art installations. His understanding of plastic’s never-degrading nature and its ecological cost is reflected in this practice. A painter and performer inhabiting the visual worlds of both street art and popular culture, Scharf’s graffiti paintings gained him notoriety and established a vernacular language of his own. Often working with improvisation, he creates playful, gestural pieces that blend stylized motifs with references to the surreal, science fiction, and icons of popular culture. Many of his larger works still adorn New York streets to this day. Despite the overall cheeriness—the seahorses and sharks and razor-teethed creatures of his oeuvre that ultimately leave viewers with a smile despite their menace, many of Scharf’s paintings are driven by environmental concerns. Read More
Photography by Max Basch
JENNY HOLZER
In collaboration with internationally acclaimed American artist Jenny Holzer, Parley produced 10 Palladium-gilded surfboards with screen-printed gold leaf that reads “THIS ECSTASY,” a phrase excerpted from Walter Pater’s book, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, on the earnest pursuit of the aesthetics of life. Each board in the edition is gilded by hand and signed on the verso, in a nod to the Silver Surfer.
These surfboards unite the worlds of art and surfing, encouraging eco-innovation, imagination and collaboration to protect our oceans. The surf community, whose knowledge of and love for the ocean is unparalleled, is as vital to the Parley mission as working with artists, who synthesize the cause into a creative call for action.
The surfboard edition proceeds will go to the Parley AIR Station, an educational hub located in the Maldives, as well as towards a waste collection concept, Gaaf Alif atoll. Parley Maldives, which functions independently of political parties and religious institutions, customizes and optimizes operational schemes according to the unique needs of the region in addressing plastic pollution and related ocean threats. Read More
Photography by Tom Wagner
KEIICHI TANAAMI
Parley is proud to present a new, vibrant edition of surfboards created in collaboration with leading contemporary Japanese artist Keiichi Tanaami. The series of 20 limited-edition Paulownia Firewire surfboards consists of four unique designs titled: Indulge in Fantasies; Another World; Contact with Light and Sign of the Incident.
The 86-year-old, Tokyo-based artist’s deployment of blazing color, dizzying layers of imagery and a canny mixture of American and Japanese cultural references capture both the movement and energy of a society in constant motion and the search of desperately needed peace.
The surfboards unite the worlds of art and surfing, as a messenger for the cause. Each is a surfable symbol and a call for eco-innovation, creativity and collaboration to protect our oceans. The surf community is equally vital to the Parley mission as the artists, as they know the oceans like no others. The project is a synthesis of a surfer’s love for the ocean and an artist’s imaginative call for change. Read More