A Free Ride

Skaters on the sculpture “A Free Ride” di Raphael Zarka

“What I am interested in, is the fact that skaters privilege a mechanical rather than an aesthetic relation with a work of art. For them, the whole point of a sculpture is given by the variety of movement that it suggests them”. Free Ride is a wood replica of a work by Tony Smith that is currently in the collection of MoMA inNew York, imagined and projected to be reactivated by skaters’ board and their movements.

Raphaël Zarka
A Free Ride, 2014
skateboarders on the replica of a 1966 sculpture by Tony Smith
Courtesy of the artist and Michel Rein, Paris/Brussels
Roma, 2014 Foto by Davide Biondani

Raphaël Zarka. Born in Montpellier (France) in 1977. He lives and works in Paris. Raphaël Zarka works with photography, video and the written essay to explore the language of sculpture.  His work concentrates on the analysis of space, of the forms that shape it, and of the possibility to rewrite their meaning by perfoming it.

Solo exhibitions (selection): Raphaël Zarka / Aurélien Froment (cur. Olivier Michelon), Les Abattoirs (Toulouse, France) in 2016, Les Prismatiques, Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye (Poissy, France) in 2013, Le tombeau d’Archimède, Le Grand Café (Saint-Nazaire, France), Gibellina, Stroom Den Haag (La Haye, The Netherlands), Gibellina, CAN (Neuchâtel, Switzerland) in 2011, PERGOLA, Palais de Tokyo (Paris) in 2010, Geometry Improved, Modern Art (Oxford, UK) in 2009. Group exhibitions (selection): Sound Spill, Zabludowicz Collection (New York) in 2013, Les dérives de l’imaginaire, Palais de Tokyo(Paris), Apartés, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Performa 11, New Visual Art Performance Biennial (New York) in 2011. His work has been presented through screenings such as Species of Skateboarding, Tate Modern (London) and Video et Après, Centre Pompidou (Paris) in 2011. His first monography has been published in 2012 by B42 / Galerie Michel Rein. He was awarded the Ricard Prize in 2008. And he’s nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2013. His work is included in leading museum and foundation collections such as Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris; Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, Paris; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; MUDAM, Luxembourg; Zabludowicz Foundation, London; Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.