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Pathways 2 shows filmmaker Brett Nichols’s golden state spot seeker’s paradise, curated fruits of mid-century civic utopian projects depicted in Super 8 digests advertising California dream. Land art laid as future primitive playgrounds summon jazz tap top down nuance carves. Cross-continental cultural exchange appears via collaged, camera twisting board bending, indebted to Japanese skate vids and the Spirit Quest spirit, with nods to Magenta and Rios crews. Grandchildren of the Summer of Love skating playgrounds and sculptures places faith in forebears’ good intent to built these spaces still intact, revealing new uses upon half a century’s wear. These skate spaces are unmistakably American, wide even when twisted and narrow, yet often European feeling in academic abstract modernist embrace. Crust appears rarely, a critique through omission of current American skate acceptance and fetishization of dancing on decay. Sculptures are guideposts from the pre-skate generations’ best efforts. Minor landmarks suggest the space race influenced earthbound terrain recreation. I recognize Noguchi Plaza’s indented brickwork.
Jazz churns unsettled, looking over its shoulder as robots play guitar. Every spot is curated for visual appeal with in-house, deliberate b-roll, and one understands how this half-hour video took six years to create. Skaters grab their boards as often as they use hands to climb and carve within sculptural nooks. Instrumental soundtracking and subtle clothing foreground set locations and board maneuvers more than the skaters themselves. Drum beats tap between quick shots of architectural flourishes, riding serpentine spine beside agave plants. Title screen appears over PATHWAYS 2 circuitous all caps brushstrokes:
Herculean Josh Paz headlined 2016’s Pathways. Back at it again, @jawzpawz appears here first part in iPath script while he circumnavigates dry fountain bed beneath floral sculpture. Travelog clips show communities united in dance; handmade skeletons shake and rattle as connective cursor toward current robotics manouevering on Science Skateboards. First trick back tail shove down a snake-run ditch sets spot and trick expectations high in white tee and navy cargo pants, Adidas and orange beanie that fits his history with LowCard. Josh ollie north donutrides a pierside installation, then powerlipslides atop hexagonal crest of the next.
Catch Paz quincunx calculating uponto wooden bench then pop ascendant back 5050 on Piet Mondrain tiltawhirl tiling with dyed blonde hairbrushed over brown base. Paz has stacked productively elsewhere since Pathways, but one senses how he saved special spots as Pathways clips for this redux. He can trust Nichol’s process because nobody else seems likely to be skating these places. He rockrides on piles laid like charcoals in service of central sculptural torch, beanie on like Daewon Song. Quick camera clips show intricate overhead movement, then at relative of first spot in same outfit Josh blunt slides a ditch chute’s chest. After board nudging for momentum aide, Josh noseblunts the marble curbs running down a stair set’s other side, then pops into the next pathway a la Max Taylor. Josh pops humps laid around a cactus influenced sculpture then rides back 5050 up bridge cabling. Frame in Frame zooms into nighttime brick slide and shell dappled sandcastle carves. Paz pump track blasts a daytime single, then night time lines a different pump track, speedy jazz matching quick feet, before blessing a brick quarterpipe with nighttime then daytime clips.
Front 180 over plaza water gap shows fresh power as transfer grinds ring on hollow sculpture. A woman dances with a robot as Josh boomerang stalls atop a spiky spine. He finds an arboretum bank, then produces a couple fresh clips on China Banks. He runs a progression on bankside shove its, from backside to frontside, nollie frontside to nollie backside. Flower petals turn sundials as discs spin concentric drain ward circles, urethane hinged trucks spanning down pinch point. The rest of Pathways 2 continues in similar inspiring manner. Riders share sections and spots with pride and goats. A teacher by trade, viewers find fitting that Mr. Paz leads the way.
Topic: pathways 2 (Read 1732 times)