Amsterdam-born photographer and filmmaker Ari Marcopoulos (1957) has become a familiar name to skaters and rockers, as well as to artists and scenesters. The Cat features his work in the world of snowboarding. It is a portrait of the Norwegian boarder Terje Haakonsen, filled with years of photographs not just of “the Cat” at work but of his life, his family, his friends, his home. Haakonsen (born in 1974) is widely considered one of the most influential snowboarders of all time and was one of the sport’s early icons, Half-pipe World Champion three years in a row not long after that contest was established. This is the first of a series of Marcopoulos’ portraits books of subjects in the contexts of their home lives.
Ari Marcopoulos has work in the current international traveling exhibition Beautiful Losers, and has recently had solo exhibitions at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in California, and at P.S.1 in New York. His photographs are regularly featured in the New York Times Magazine.