Gleaming The Cube: Static, Josh Stewart and a sense of place

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Posted February 15, 2013 in More

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Words: Danny Wilson // more Gleaming the Cube

Over the weekend, the worldwide skateboarding community was offered its first glimpse of what promises to be one of the more exciting releases in coming months, alongside the much anticipated Vans and Deathwish videos: the fourth and apparently final installment of Josh Stewart’s beloved Static series.

Beloved might seem like a strange term to use when describing a series of skateboard video –, as we know there is no accounting for taste especially when it comes to skateboarding — but since their inception with the first Static video’s release in 2000, Stewart’s series of videos have taken up a very special place in the hearts of countless skaters.

Along with Dan Wolfe’s Eastern Exposure series, Static can be understood as the ancestor of the independent films that have come to be some of the most significant releases within skateboarding culture of the last few years. But the explanation for Static and by extension Stewart’s success does not lay simply in the fact he exposed a wider skateboarding community to a branch of skateboarding that would not have previously been given due recognition globally.

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The Static series’ rise to prominence can perhaps be best understood through the significance of place that permeates every section throughout the entire series of videos. In fact, one could even say that “place” as a notion is what makes almost every trick throughout a Static production take on a new significance. There is obvious difficulty apparent throughout the ledge-heavy technicality that characterises many of the now-classic static parts, but that said, many of the tricks themselves take on a greater significance as a result of where they are being performed, a notion that has take on a new air of significance in the last few years.

Of course, there has always been a branch of skateboarding that would have had this mentality when taking in a picture or video footage of any given trick but with the apparent preoccupation with consistency and hyper-technicality that has infected some corners of skateboarding culture in this age of Monster Energy New-Eras, Street League and Dew Tour, there has been an obvious reactionary movement from some skaters who have gone entirely the other way with it and say appreciation for any given trick is to be found in not simply what is happening but where it is happening. Stewart, though, is certainly not alone in his endeavours has to be understood to be key figure in inspiring this vision. Especially when one considers that the 12-year-olds watching Jake Rupp sailing perfect backside 180s over handicap rails in the year 2000 are now the 24-year-old jaded hipsters seemingly driving east coast skateboarding’s singular aesthetic.

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Perhaps it is unfair to limit the significance of Stewart’s work to where each trick is happening. In a sense, the true importance of the staticSseries is not simply about where that which is on screen is taking place but certainly in the first installment of the series, when it is happening. The late 1990s and early 2000s were a golden age of sorts for east coast skateboarding. Love Park in Philadelphia had already captured the imagination of skateboarders the world over, but at the beginning stages of the new millennium, there was something of a changing of the guard as new technical ledge masters took control of the hallowed Philly plaza and once again the spot took on a rejuvenated significance.

Philadelphia was not the only hot bed of east coast activity though, as more and more skateboarders from New York to DC were making their own plazas into locations of international skateboarding renown, as well as drawing attention to untold possibilities latent atop the cellar doors that lined their streets. Stewart’s first Static video will always be associated with this point in skateboard history.

Static 2 ran with this idea of place being at the fore with another follow up DC section as well as one dedicated in whole to London and another to Stewart’s native Florida. The Static series were no longer videos that just showcased a group of skateboarders; they were also a means to showcase some of skateboarding’s healthiest and in retrospect most important local scenes, many of which thrived at a multi-thousand mile remove from the industry’s California dominated centre. Even the video’s subtitle “The Invisibles” alludes to this. Stewart seemed to have made it his mission to showcase the overlooked minorities that played such a part in putting together the tapestry of skateboarding culture as a whole. This is perhaps best illustrated in the stand-out part from the man that sold a million brown cords, king of the cellar door and notorious curmudgeon, Bobby Puleo.

The significance of “place” and “time” as ideas to reading or appreciating any skate photo or footage (despite how ridiculous the notion of “reading” skateboarding sounds) cannot be overstated. Since the release of his most recent addition to the Static series, Static 3 in 2007, Stewart’s work has taken on an almost wholly geographical theme. The series of Ride Channel videos simply entitled “Skate…” followed by the city they are highlighting that Stewart has been putting out of late highlight this. Each video follows a skater around their home or adopted home city as they give us a would be walking/skating tour of famous spots, local skate shops and more often than not favoured nightspots. Native Floridian and long time friend of Stewart’s Ben Gore’s San Francisco edition is unsurprisingly a highlight.

Stewart’s preoccupation with not just tricks but where they are happening is perhaps most apparent in the part-skate video, part-documentary series Amazon that he put together in 2011 for the now tragically defunct Skateboarder magazine. The documentary follows a group of skaters travelling up the Amazon River and stopping at various cities along the way with a view to boldly skating where no man has skated before. Every trick throughout the video has a significance all of its own simply by virtue of the fact chances are nobody has ever even considered skateboarding at that location previously. Skating in untouched places like this is perhaps the zenith of the radical re-purposing of space that defines great street skateboarding. The very same kind of reinterpreting and repurposing of public space that made that made the east-coast plaza skating of the early 2000s so exciting.

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Of course it’s typical skate nerd nonsense to attach all this high-minded arseholery to Stewart’s work and I’m sure if the man himself saw all this discussion of the “significance of space in his work” he might well roll his eyes. In all honesty, all you need to do to see the brilliance of Stewart’s work is to watch it, so you should go do that if you haven’t and if you already have then watch it again. After all this discussion of time though one can’t help but think now really seems like a fitting time for static’s last hurrah.

Some of skateboarding’s most talked about brands at the moment come from as far afield as London (Palace) and Sweden (Polar), California’s stranglehold on the industry and by extension skater’s around the world’s wallets is if not lost certainly loosening.  In a way these shifts could be seen as mission accomplished for Stewart. The skateboarding community seems more aware than it ever was of the multitudes of scenes around the world each with their own styles and interpretations of skateboard culture and that can only be a good thing for the international community as a whole.

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