Robert Kanes

It's odd how things come full-circle. When I was a kid, I played with Matchbox cars in the dirt. When I was a bit older, I roamed our nearby dirt trails for hours on end. As a teenager, I developed a passion for dirt-track racing, and also started photographing dirt piles and other similar landscape dislocations as a formal aesthetic exercise. And nowadays, I ride my mountain bike in the dirt as often as I can. Dirt, dirt, dirt. Meanwhile, the racing is still going on and I'm still attending, photographing the aftermath of a typical Saturday night's activities. Shown here are a few images from the Racing Series, investigating the vernacular graphics and creative destruction on display at these events. There are also some urban landscapes, and a few images from my other occasional hobby, extreme mini-golf. This is an outgrowth of a biannual charity event held here in San Francisco, where participants build very strange (but playable) mini-golf holes, completely overtaking the host's property. These are examples from an installation I co-built called "Tiki Torture". It featured real open flame, a 14-foot tall Tiki god with flashing eyes, tropical bar service, and ceremonial chanting. The hole was very playable, though it might destroy your golf ball in the process...