Surfing’s ultimate “hot guy” launches his
new photo book for Rizzoli; lauded by acclaimed movie director;
prints sell for $15,000!
By Steve Rees
According to Julian Schnabel, when looking at a
Fuller photo “you can barely see and at the same time it is all you
can see. You might not know if your eyes are open or closed.”
You know Danny Fuller. Stylish big-wave
goofy-footer born in Hanalei, bred on Pipe, and splashed in Chanel
Allure Homme.
You know he’s a model, and he’s also a noted photographer.
He just released a new book titled Liquid Horizons:
Meditations on the Surf and Sea (Rizzoli, $55).
At first glance, many of Fuller’s photos look like simple blue
watercolor washes, tie-dyes for the simple. But then we realize
that his tool is a Pentax not a paintbrush; he’s got technical
skill as well as a rare eye.
Most of the 200 collected photographs in the glossy hardbound
collection are blurred to the point where the viewer can recognize
large fields of sea and sky but little else. Minimalist blocks of
blues stack like a Rothko if Rothko took mushrooms.
When I mention the comparison to Danny, he says it “would be the
greatest compliment. My greatest form of influence comes from
painters, especially of the abstract expressionist or surrealist
movements. Some of my early works were being mistaken for
paintings.”
Let’s hope that’s the only similarity. Rothko crossed a razor
blade through the artery of his right arm. In contrast, Fuller’s
photos are light and cheerful all around.
Anti-depressive, for sure.
A coffee table photo book from some unknown isn’t too
appealing.
But we respect Fuller.
To watch him carve up a full-faced Indonesian wave is special.
The images give us some insight into his frame of mind.
Each photograph was shot under the moonlight. Knowing this, it’s
hard to understand how the images shine with such bright blues and
purples. But we don’t need to understand things to appreciate
them.
Danny clarifies. “By not having a readily identifiable
structure, and therefore open to one’s interpretation and
imagination, it lets us embark on an unexpected journey―allowing
for deeper modes of seeing, feeling and transportation to another
state of consciousness. By bending borders of perception and
redefining visual representation, we can see beyond the naked
eye.”
And we appreciate such clarity.
Liquid Horizons is Danny’s second collection of
photographs. He feels that he’s constantly learning, as revealed in
the new collection. He describes himself as a “student who
continuously takes notes of his surroundings.”
At $15,500 for one of his enlarged prints hanging in Fort
Lauderdale’s New River Art Gallery, Danny apparently also studies
economics.
For us, opting for the book might be more attractive as you can
enjoy all of Danny’s pieces and still buy a solid work truck.
The only smudge on the otherwise wonderful book is the unneeded
attempt to lend credibility to it. Artist Julian Schnabel and Pipe
king Gerry Lopez bookend the collection, each providing a tangle of
meta-gibberish in attempts to translate Danny’s work into
words.
According to Schnabel, when looking at a Fuller photo “you can
barely see and at the same time it is all you can see. You might
not know if your eyes are open or closed.”
That’s fine for Mr. Schnabel, but we, the uninitiated, might
prefer looking at art with our eyes open.
Danny’s commentary, though, doesn’t fly far from theirs. At
least he’s the creator of the images.
“I’m interested in pushing beyond the status quo of
documentation and static mode of representation,” he says. “Looking
deeper than the surface layer of what one perceives and revealing
the obscured interweaving and controlled chaos of the nature. Here,
one finds the mysteries of form, color and texture that activate
visual thinking to create new meanings.”
Magical, yes?
For fifty-five bucks plus shipping, let us at least enjoy making
our own half-cooked parallels between Danny’s photos and the
transcendence of the universal super-conscious.
JP Currie on Tyler Wright’s “bombshell”
ESPN interview: “It’s deeply unfair to characterise her father Rob
as not only the cruel and uncompromising patriarch, but almost as a
symbol of the patriarchy itself. And to use THAT picture in the
article, yet snuff out his voice?”
By JP Currie
Does a man’s pursuit of passion, even if
vicariously through his children, constitute success or
failure?
A scene, a snapshot, a perspective…
Praia da Consolação, Portugal, October 2010. The southern end of
the stretch of sand that hosts Supertubos.
A young man sits in a rental car, a silver Opel Corsa with
passenger seat tilted all the way back and surfboard wedged into
the footwell.
He’s been watching the marginal, scattered windswell,
unconvinced it’s worth getting in, despite the approaching midday
heat. The pleasant waft of lunchtime barbequed sardines drifts
through cobblestone streets behind the breakwater and makes him
think there might be more value in appeasing his girlfriend by
going back to the apartment for some lunch.
His swithering is interrupted by the rear end of another rental
car, a Renault Kangoo, swinging abruptly into the spot in front of
him. The rear brake lights have barely stopped glowing when all
doors erupt simultaneously in a flurry of neoprene and joy.
A tall, sinewy man with skin like fine leather strides round to
the rear of the Kangoo to release the boot and the jumble of
surfboards within.
It’s a family race to the water. Girls and boys, a cacophony of
stoke exploding towards the beach.
Arms and shoulders swing in ad hoc stretches as they hurry to
the water’s edge. There are some brief lunges, combined with
strapping on leashes.
The younger boy, darker than his brother, sprints and throws his
board down like a skimboard, gliding for a second before popping a
180 off the incoming wash.
It’s all whoops and smiles. The enthusiasm is palpable.
The young man in the rental car looks on in admiration. He is
witnessing the Wright family. He recognises Owen, here to compete
in the WCT event and on his way to a seventh overall finish and
Rookie of The Year honours by season end.
He admires the sheer physicality of the family, with their
deeply earned tans and their lithe power.
He admires their joy as they swarm over the windswell, hooting
each other in and throwing flyaway airs into the whitewash.
Children and parents united by a clear passion for surfing.
He is thinking: there’s a thing to aspire to. A family working
and playing together. A family of supreme health and fitness,
revelling in nature, culture and international travel.
Together. Happy. Surfing.
Still nearly a decade away from children of his own, the young
man knows that he has seen the ideal. Later he will tell his
girlfriend about it and they will dream about the future.
Fast forward eleven years.
The Wright family has faced challenges. But weigh this against
world titles, big contracts, experience, travel, objective
successes…
Would it be unreasonable to perceive that the joy observed in
this earlier snapshot had led to some happiness and
accomplishment?
Every hero needs a villain. The villains of the piece are pro
surfing and Tyler’s father, Rob Wright.
In summary…
Tyler is presented as a lost soul, forced to surf, railroaded
into a career as a professional surfer by a cruel father and
lacking the voice, even the “language”, to speak out against
it.
She’d rather be in school.
She’s angry, but not allowed to show it.
All the men on Tour demean and degrade women.
She’s “sexualised and scrutinised by fans, sponsors and the
sport’s leaders”.
We are presented, once again, with the
“women-forced-to-surf-like-men” trope. (No mention of Stephanie
Gilmore’s seven world titles or universally celebrated style). This
is backed up by Sal Masekela, so that makes it unequivocal.
One villain is vanquished when she tells her dad she doesn’t
want his help anymore.
Her uncle dies, Owen has his accident at Pipe, her mum gets
brain tumours, yet she wins back-to-back world titles in a toxic
sport that she hates.
She did it, but she didn’t enjoy it.
She meets her girlfriend, finds her voice, wants to confront the
“homophobic, racist and extremely sexist” culture of the surfing
community.
Then she gets sick with a mystery illness for a year (identified
in the piece ambiguously as “post viral syndrome” and sounding very
much like a euphemism for “depression and anxiety”).
She gets better, reads some feminist literature and re-emerges
with her old world champ form but an armoury of social justice
missiles behind her.
“We can’t talk about sexism without talking about racism.
They’re not separate issues.” It’s all the same to her.
And I might suggest that discovering language is one thing,
knowing its power quite another.
Voices don’t appear overnight.
There are many, many books.
I might also speak up for what’s missing from the ESPN
piece.
No other pro surfers (of any gender) are consulted. Key family
members are absent. No WSL authorities are questioned, unless you
count Jesse Miley-Dyer (close personal friend of Tyler Wright).
Revisionist history?
Let me imagine an alternative writerly perspective.
One might equally present this arc as belonging to someone with
a quality desirable to all – the quality of resilience.
This resilience was cultivated as part of a family unit where
gender was secondary to effort and performance.
(If, instead of what actually happened, young Tyler had been
sent to school while the boys played in the waves, how would we
view that?)
Learning came, as all good learning does, from discomfort.
A father dedicated his life to ensuring his children lived in
pursuit of health and happiness, with minds broadened by travel and
bank accounts furnished by companies willing to pay them for elite
performance in a sport idealistic to millions but rewarding very
few.
Three out of five children top-ranked professional athletes.
Does a man’s pursuit of passion, even if vicariously through his
children, constitute success or failure?
One might suggest that the determination and focus fostered from
a young age in a hard-knock, cut-throat sport and family dynamic
was the defining factor that allowed both Tyler and Owen to emerge
victorious from debilitating injuries that would have ended most
athletes.
The Wright children are pro athletes forged in iron. They lead
lives that need no filters to be the epitome of Insta envy.
You could say that the reason Tyler Wright is so damn good at
surfing, the best in the world, no less, and the reason she has a
platform and a voice, is precisely because of her upbringing.
Perspective.
And where is Rob Wright’s voice anyway?
The writer of the ESPN piece excuses the omission of Rob’s voice
with an addendum to a sentence stating that he’s been diagnosed
with early onset dementia.
No point in talking to him then, eh.
It’s deeply unfair to characterise him as not only the cruel and
uncompromising patriarch, but almost as a symbol of the patriarchy
itself.
And to use THAT picture in the article, yet snuff out his
voice?
I’ve got no skin in this game, but I feel for the poor
fucker.
And what about Owen’s voice?
Or Mikey’s?
One might presume that in a profile piece about a professional
surfer citing a toxic family environment as reason for her struggle
and unhappiness, it might be privy to obtain the views of two of
her siblings who have followed the same career path.
As for Longtom, dear Steve with his Tolstoy and his Lennox lore
and his goat’s balls. If you’re that close to the situation (given
that they live(d) in Lennox and you clearly know them) then what
about some insight beyond bunging Rob in a ute and dropping him off
again? That ghost shell image is about as useless as Alyssa
Roenigk’s half-sentence brush off.
Don’t just allude to things unseen. Don’t you leave meat on the
bone, too.
With the ESPN piece the writer has leaned hard into the issues
du jour, just as Tyler has, but it’s a well-worn narrative, and it
misses enough to cast doubt on the perspective.
There’s a lot more to say about the Wright family, I’m sure.
Many perspectives.
This once-young man would like to hear the other voices.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Just in: Backstreet Boy Howie D makes
real-estate fool of co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff, breaks
ground on $35m condo in Kelly Slater’s Cocoa Beach!
By Chas Smith
Baby buy, buy, buy.
If co-Waterperson of the Year, owner of professional
surfing, Dirk Ziff’s face was not red this morning when it
was revealed that he took a $100m
bath on a slice of South Florida where everybody,
literally everybody, is making money then it will certainly grow
crimson when he discovers that Backstreet Boy Howie D stands to
make a fortune on a condominium complex in Kelly Slater’s Cocoa
Beach.
With his Backstreet Boys touring schedule postponed by the
pandemic, Howie D addressed a small crowd during the groundbreaking
of his $35 million Cocoa Beach condominium complex, News 6 partner
Florida Today reports.
“This is actually the first time I’ve been in front of an
audience in a year,” Howie D said, speaking to about 35 people
standing on a sidewalk Monday morning at the future site of The
Surf.
“This is not my normal gig,” he said, generating
laughter.
The Surf will feature 25 luxury condominiums ranging from
$975,000 to $2.5 million and a second-floor swimming pool, spa and
fire pit atop ground-level retail space with a target opening date
in the first or second quarter 2023.
Guaranteed to make much money because of both its name and
likely association with the 11x World Champion.
Howie D will start recording the Backstreet Boys Christmas album
next week, basking in his coming real-estate riches. “I’m actually
catching up with the guys for the first time in a year next week.
We’re going to catch up somewhere in the winter wonderland —
somewhere wherever there’s some snow — to get into the Christmas
spirit,” he told the outlet.
“We’re going to go in and do some pre-production on it, getting
to see who’s going to sound right on which song. And then we’ll
probably all record the rest of it individually.”
Very cool though equally unlikely that Dirk Ziff will buy or
listen as he is known for extreme jealousy.
The story probably as developed as it will ever be.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Co-Waterperson of the Year, owner of
professional surfing, Dirk Ziff takes bath on ultra-luxury South
Florida property: “Daddy would be pretty bummed right now!”
By Chas Smith
Rough.
First, co-Waterperson of the Year, owner of
professional surfing, Dirk Ziff had to charter an airplane from Los
Angeles to Newcastle, Australia filled with the world’s best, or
best-adjacent, professional surfers. Then he had to secure a large
room block at the local Ibis Budget, to sleep all of them for two
weeks, also arranging enough Mrs Macs meat pies from the nearby
Metro Petroleum station to feed them during that time.
And all while taking an over $100m bath on a South Florida
ultra-luxury property.
It has NOT been a good few months.
The “15-acre ocean-to-lake compound” sold earlier this week for
a reported $94m which would be very fine except it was listed
6-years ago for $200m.
According to The Real
Deal, “The more than 30-bedroom estate connects via
tunnels, including a furnished tunnel underneath South Ocean
Boulevard that features a 15-foot-wide gallery. The property has a
12-bedroom main house, two four-bedroom beachside cottages, a
seven-bedroom Mango House, a staff house and recreational
amenities, including a swimming pool, golf area, tennis court and
half-basketball court.”
No Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch likely depressing the value.
It was owned by Ziff and his brothers Robert and Daniel, who
inherited their fortune from their publishing magnate father.
Daniel was listed as the manager on the entity that sold the
property.
No Kelly Slater likely depressing the value.
Even though the ultra-luxury home market has been strong in
South Florida with the arrival of Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka
Trump, the Ziffs could not capitalize.
Much like not being able to host naturally-socially distant
surfing competitions in the time of Covid when they would have been
the only live sporting events on television.
Rough.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Breaking: Haleiwa residents allowed to
return back to the first jewel of the Triple Crown as threat of
“catastrophic flooding, general apocalyptic hoo-ha” subsides!
By Chas Smith
Feat. Jack Johnson.
Oahu’s North Shore felt the brunt of a very
mean Pacific storm, yesterday, and many Haleiwa residents were
forced to evacuate as officials feared “catastrophic flooding.”
The National Weather Service described the usually tranquil
Opaeula Stream, flowing through town, as “particularly dangerous”
with levels rising from 4 to 16 feet Hawaiian.
Locals described the terror they felt as the sky opened up and
poured down its savagery upon them.
“It was kind of dry and then all of a sudden!” One couple said.
“… We thought we were gonna be OK and the next minute it was on our
stoop and another few minutes it was going to be in the house.”