ABSTRACT
There are clear linkages between aesthetic pleasures and sport, physical engagement with the world and the exerting body in contemporary Western society. This chapter focusses on work done by Atencio and Becky Beal, who explored the Beautiful Losers exhibition in terms of a re-colonization of symbolic capital by and for outsider masculine identity formations. Atencio and Beal see Beautiful Losers as a populist art form that creates a social order that privileges renegade or outsider masculinity within which the creative classes and their dispositions are privileged in post-Fordist economies. The chapter examines the Love + Guts show in terms of its opportunities for skater's, public and artist's pleasures. It also discusses tensions within the show and skateboarding subculture itself that may lead to pleasure and to displeasure. The chapter finally concerns with how people ascertain and rank various pleasures.
