RLWindow: EIDIA – Melissa Wolf and Paul Lamarre. Done Decks

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EIDIA bridges these topics by suggesting that, like artists performing with their “food,” the skateboarders, as creative individuals, act “Play” far beyond the age that our society nds acceptable. And artists seem to engage in similar behavior.

In his book e Utopia of Rules, David Graeber suggests that “Play” is more of a creative source than “Games.” To paraphrase: ‘‘Games” require participants to follow rules whereas “Play” involves free‐form creativity. “It’s about the play principle in nature... instead of being rule‐following economic drones of capitalism, we are essentially playful” (Melville House, New York: 2015).

Nonetheless with “Play” being the driver in Done Decks, EIDIA garnered serious inspiration for the installation from John McCracken’s monolithic vertical pseudo sur oard planks, Gary Hill’s role as a child skateboarder in the movie Skater Dater (1965) and Marcel Duchamp’s Fresh Widow (1920), which suggests the “illusion” of art as it is traditionally framed behind glass as the “window” through which everyday life is framed. e title Done Decks alludes to the skateboard decks that are discarded when the skateboarder is nished with them. Le behind and then retrieved as objects, EIDIA values the life experience re ected in the degradation of the decks’ original “art face.” A key aspect in the “aesthetic research” of EIDIA’s practice spanning the past decade is repurposing and recontextualizing previously created objects, and here EIDIA rede nes the purpose of the deck, instruments of earthly ight. For this unique installation, the done decks are no longer in horizontal positions but vertical and spinning—reminded of their function in a previous life, ying and ipping on the streets.

While editing one of duo’s lms in San Antonio, Texas, Lamarre did a tandem skydive jump with a noted “Skysurfer.” e idea of balancing on a board or boards sailing through air has since come and gone in Lamarre’s dreams—“Ideas o en come to me in the dark of the night.”

Paul Lamarre and Melissa P. Wolf are artists from New York City who work collaboratively under the name EIDIA (“Everything I Do Is Art.”) Together, they serve as co‐executive directors of EIDIA House, a Brooklyn‐based meeting place and forum for artists, scholars, poets, writers, architects and others interested in “idée force” the arts as an instrument for positive social change. EIDIA’s practice presents its form through multimedia installations, photography, sculpture, video, painting and aesthetic research. eir endeavors explore the dynamics of art politics, social spaces and the environment. EIDIA works are in numerous private collections, museums, art institutions and in over 200 prominent universities and colleges internationally.