Skateboarding
Skateboarding
Drawing Parallels: How Skaters Shape Visual Culture
Skateboarding blends culture, art and style, shaping trends from decks to fashion. Red Bull Origin celebrated Venice’s roots in skateboarding while showcasing the current crop of skateboarding talent.
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A weekend for milestones
Skateboarding has long been a breeding ground for visual artists who go on to make a lasting impact across creative fields. From fashion and footwear design to video direction, deck graphics, and beyond, the culture naturally sharpens a keen design sensibility. With icons like Mark Gonzales, Tony Alva, Rick Howard and Mike Carroll coming together at Red Bull Origin, it was the perfect celebration to explore how skaters translate their perspective into visual work, where their inspiration comes from, and why they so often rise as leaders in creative culture.
Alex Sorgente at Red Bull Origin
© Anthony Acosta / Red Bull Content Pool
Big anniversaries: This year’s Origin was timed to coincide with Venice Beach's 120th anniversary year, and we’re all looking forward to the LA 2028 Summer Games. This weekend was also a big milestone for Venice legend Tony Alva as he celebrated his 68th birthday with a brunch at the Waterfront surrounded by some of his oldest and closest friends. Tony surfed in the morning before the gathering and pulled up straight from the beach—the dude looks great. With the help of Juice Magazine, an incredible tribute was made to the late photographer Wynn Miller who documented the early Dogtown scene. Wynn’s children and grandchildren were on hand to witness the touching tribute. One of TA’s longest friends and fellow Venice Boy, Jesse Martinez was there to say a few words about his friend Tony and Red Bull Origin. We also got treated to a visual message from artist and culture-shaper Shepard Fairey who showed off hand-made decks featuring classic photos of Tony. The visual art that Wynn, Tony and Shepard have created over the last 50 years literally shows the creation of skateboarding culture as we know it. Top that off with a surprise speed by Robert Trujillo, Metallica's longest service bass player, and it's easy to see why this was a heavy brunch! Everyone left much more educated about skateboarding’s roots in Venice Beach.
The action on the beach
Built next to the sand where the old Venice “pits” are buried, Red Bull Origin constructed a street course paying homage to Venice’s most famous spots from the past: The Venice hubba, that you can see Eric Dressen boardsliding down in the promo image for the whole weekend, the double kink handrail that Mark Gonzales boardslid in Video Days and Chad Muska later 50-50’d, and the volcano-shaped pillars that lined the Venice pits, the tops of which still protrude from the sand. It was like skating on top of ancient Egyptian artifacts!
In addition to the temporary street course, there was a bowl jam and death races Friday evening in the permanent Venice Skatepark, and a wallride competition with quarterpipes braced against the walls of the Rec Center on Saturday afternoon. There was also a “Natas Kaupas hydrant challenge” on Friday night commemorating the ground-breaking “Natas Spin” from 1989—and the location of the original hydrant was just a block away! You could feel the history in the streets.
Sky Brown at Red Bull Origin
© Anthony Acosta / Red Bull Content Pool
Sky Brown set the whole Cash for Tricks on the tombstone off with a kickflip indy off the tombstone into the bowl. Z-Flex rider Issei Sakurai from Japan was flying around the bowl with frontside feeble grinds getting the crowd hyped, but it was local hero Haden McKenna who shut down the jam with a nosegrab body varial to fakie, going higher than most. Next up was the “Longest slide or grind as long as it’s not a 50-50" competition. A legend in his 50s, Omar Hassan rolled into a lipslide from the deck, as he’s known to do. Heimana Reynolds layed into deep Smith grinds, and Luke Kahler held a frontside nosegrind for days before popping in. Cory Juneau did the longest backside lipslide we’ve ever seen on a bowl, and Yuro Nagahara held onto the longest frontside boardslides. Cash was handed out, then the whole crowd shifted one bowl over to witness the head-to-head Death Races. It was all fun and games until the sandy corner that kept taking a lot of skaters out. Sky Brown won the bracket for the women while Cory Juneau sailed through the checkered sticker finish line time and time again ahead of any and all competitors.
Next up, it was time to try our luck on Natas Spinning the replica hydrant between two kickers. Andy Anderson, to no one’s surprise, spun it to win it (after the top cap got knocked off), and fellow Canadian Ryan Decenzo also got some cash for a proper Natas Spin. Mark Gonzales came out of nowhere and tried to get some spins on his oversized, custom set up. It was a beauty to witness! No one’s had more influence on doing it your own way, and Mark is still doing it at 57 years young.
CJ Collins at Red Bull Origin
© Anthony Acosta / Red Bull Content Pool
Saturday came and with it another perfectly sunny SoCal day. East Coast Emcee Tim O’Connor kept joking about California delivering visuals he was promised from TV and the movies with dogs on skateboards and bubbles flying through the air. After the incredible morning brunch with Tony Alva and the Miller family, it was time to pay homage to Venice Beach’s history of wallrides at the Rec Center. Quarterpipes were set up against the walls creating a channel gap, and a couple ramps were set up against a lower wall making a grindable ledge you could take to flat. Behind all the action, local graffiti writers were doing their thing on the “pits” walls that are still visible above the sand. Local 90s wallride innovator Tim Jackson was even in attendance marveling at what this new generation is capable of: Haden McKenna, Shawn Hale and Roman Pabich did unthinkable vertical riding on the walls, but Cody Chapman went the highest. Later, a clown-fronted extension was fork-lifted into place above the lower wall and Issei Sakurai blessed it with a frontside Smith grind to shut down the Best Trick contest.
Then it was time for the Main Event on the rails and hubba. There was really too much to name here of what went down, but thankfully there’s plenty of video coverage on Red Bull and TransWorld’s social media channels, so if you blew it and didn’t make it out, at least you can feel like you were there, rubbing elbows with Mark Gonzales and Guy Mariano while CJ Collins did two unthinkable tricks on the smoke-billowing volcano to end the day.
Awards were given as the sun set over Venice Beach. A few feet away in the permament concrete park, sessions raged on until it was too dark to see. That’s just how they do it in Venice. Then you know what went down on Sunday? Everything was open and skateable to the public.
The palpable artistic influence
A weekend like this, with skateboarding that directly calls back to its influencing forefathers, on the exact same location that the innovation took place on, with the skaters who pioneered it in attendance—come on, that’s incredible. “This is skateboarding on hallowed ground.” Selema Masekela said on the mic during the Main Event. We couldn’t have summed up the weekend any better.
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