ERIN DUNIGAN | DATE 6/14/2011

Surfing Photographs from the Eighties by Jeff Divine

The temperature is rising, the beaches are getting crowded and the itty bitty bikinis are coming out. Summer 2011 is upon us, and ARTBOOK @ Paper Chase is celebrating with a launch party for Jeff Divine's new book of surf photos, Surfing Photographs from the Eighties! Please join us Wednesday night, June 15 from 7-9pm for an exhibition, talk and book signing.

What better way to celebrate the season than with the latest in T. Adler's successful series of surf-centric titles (including Dora Lives: The Authorized Story of Miki Dora, Surf Contest and Ron Church: California to Hawaii 1960 to 1965.

You may recognize the eternally beach bound Jeff Divine from his previous book and perennial
ARTBOOK | D.A.P. bestseller Surfing Photographs from the Seventies. Divine launched his career as a surf-photographer in the 1960’s and over the past five decades, including a 16-year stint working as the photo editor of Surfer Magazine, has earned exclusive access to the subculture of the California coastline.

Here we find Divine’s breathtaking photographs from the 1980’s, documenting the beaches from southern California to the north shore of Oahu in all their florescent and neon glory. Surfing Photographs from the Eighties presents a dynamic portrait of an important period of surf-history when the sport shifted from alternative pastime to mainstream popularity.

It’s a wonder you can’t shake sand lose from the pages or hold the book up to your ear and hear the ocean. We are talking bodacious beach-bodies and radical surfing rebels all caught on film by the now discontinued Kodachrome 64. Paging through the color-saturated monograph we find awesome action shots of American surf-legends Christian Fletcher, Tom Curren and Sunny Garcia, while Divine simultaneously captures cultural and aesthetic shifts of the 80’s like the rise of MTV and brands such as Quicksilver, O’Neill and T&C Surf Designs.

In the monograph’s forward, Surfer's Journal editor Scott Hulet sums up the essence that Divine’s adrenaline and day-glo fueled photographs seek to convey:

“So what of the Eighties? How to categorize? How to pigeonhole? Handled glibly, you can call it the Neon Decade. Handled cynically, the Money Decade. Regardless of nomenclature, the best gift of the period was the offering of a lesson: That the art could survive the sport. That aesthetic power of the experience has, thus far, proven impervious. The profound hum of surfing. Oblivious and imperturbable, the blue wall stripes off in front of you, and that’s all that’s ever mattered. Turn and chase it. Turn and chase it.”

Kick off your summer right this Wednesday at ARTBOOK @ Paper Chase, 7174 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood. Thanks again to Book Soup for selling books.!