“Clockwork Malibu”, Rick Dano, Malibu, CA

Beginning in 1970 and over the next forty-five years, Los Angeles native Anthony Friedkin made photographs of surfing. He divided his attention between the waves of the Pacific Ocean along the California coastline and his community of friends who surfed them, described by Friedkin as social outcasts whose lives were dictated by their love of the sport. These photographs form “The Surfing Essay,” which Friedkin organized into a book and exhibition after he nearly died in a surfing accident on Malibu’s famed Zuma Beach in 2016, in his midsixties. The series celebrates the Southern California surfing culture that Friedkin grew up around, while serving as an ode to the mystique of the Pacific and the ways in which it shaped his character: “The ocean waves mirror our universe. When I started to explore this, it was like therapy. I was looking into my heart and my spiritual connection to the earth.” —Gianni Valenti ’21, MRP ’22