Pictured: Keenan Milton and Aaron Meza. Los Angeles, 1998. Photo: Mike Blabac
Aug. 14, 2024 By Shane O’Brien
The Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) in Astoria has announced a new exhibition honoring the 1990s era of DIY recordings and skater culture.
Recording the Ride: The Rise of Street-Style Skate Videos, which will run from Sept. 7 through Jan. 25, 2025, recognizes the era’s skate culture and explores the origins of the new media genre, which produced grainy montages of skaters in flight, generally accompanied by rock music.
The exhibition has been installed in MoMI’s Video Screening Amphitheater and Gallery and features videos and objects related to the formative years of skate video culture in the 1980s and 1990s.
The exhibition focuses on videos that laid the foundations for the genre, including releases by Powell Peralta, H-Street, Plan B, World Industries, Girl, Birdhouse, 411, and Zoo York.
The new exhibit includes footage from the “The Bones Brigade Video Show (1984)”, a highly influential skateboarding video produced by the Powell Peralta company, and a focus on Plan B co-founder Mike Ternasky, including vintage production and post-production artifacts used in the making of Plan B’s most-celebrated releases.
Filming virtual reality, Sal Barbier, Sean Sheffey, and Mike Ternasky. San Diego 1992 Photo: Jacob Rosenberg
A highly influential figure in skate culture, Ternasky died in a car accident in 1994 at the age of 28.
Recording the Ride additionally includes behind-the-scenes images and period skateboard decks.
The exhibition will be launched with a reception at MoMI at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 7. The reception will present the program “Skate Video Essentials: The Legacy of Mike Ternasky” and features a screening of Plan B’s iconic 1993 film “Virtual Reality.”
The event will also feature discussions with skateboard legend Matt Hensley and filmmaker Jacob Rosenberg, moderated by Ternasky’s daughter, Michaela Ternasky-Holland.
The upcoming exhibition is co-organized by Ternasky-Holland, Rosenberg, and MoMI Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs Barbara Miller and includes material on loan from famous skaters and skate video pioneers, such as Lance Mountain, Jamie Thomas, R.B. Umali, Greg Hunt, Jon Holland, Jamie Mosberg, Rick Howard, and Ty Evans.
Danny Supa, Anthony Correa, and R.B. Umali, 1997. Photo: Sammy Glucksman
In a statement, Miller welcomed the new exhibition and said it would enhance MoMI’s cultural offerings, exploring a highly influential genre of filmmaking.
“The impact of skate videos extends beyond the skateboard community to art, fashion, sports, music, film, and more,” Miller said. “With our expansive view of the moving image as a reflection and building block of vernacular culture, MoMI is the ideal cultural institution to look at the origins of this essential genre.”
Rosenberg added that it was “long overdue” that the impact of skate culture was explored in detail.
“Rising from the roots of the mid-1980s classics, 1990s skate videos refined and cemented an aesthetic that remains foundational to this day. It’s long overdue for this rich form of cultural and artistic documentation to be explored and presented by a museum,” Rosenberg said.
The museum, located at 36-01 35th Ave. in Astoria, is open Thursday from 2 to 6 p.m., Friday from 2 to 8 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 6 p.m.
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