Teenage Dream: Ed Templeton’s Latest

Pro skateboarder and artist Ed Templeton has long been drawn to the vulnerable anti-beauty of urban street culture’s misfits. His 1999 photo series “Teenage Smokers” captured the essence of rebellious youth culture in shapshots of under-21s lighting up at locations including a Huntington Beach skate park. Templeton’s latest series “Teenage Kissers” builds on this juvenilia canon with a collection of playful and intimate portraits of lovers caught in the act. Ranging from close-ups of pimply love-struck adolescents to grainy profiles of nude coeds intertwined, the new series opens in late June at New York’s Half Gallery. For curator Arty Nelson, there’s no better time: “By July, the median age in Manhattan drops 20 years,” he says. “It’s sweaty and messy and the broke punk-rock kids get to take over the city.”