Futura 2000 / FLOM “For Love or Money” Skate Deck

Futura's FLOM skate deck extends one of the artist's best-known early-2000s concepts from footwear onto the object from which Nike SB itself drew much of its cultural identity. Produced in 2005, the wooden deck is covered with the international-currency collage associated with FLOM, an acronym for “For Love or Money”, and individually signed by Futura in black marker. Sotheby's records the example documented here at 75 × 19.5 cm.

The FLOM concept originated a year earlier. In 2004, Futura opened the Futura Laboratories flagship in Fukuoka, Japan and created the Nike SB Dunk High FLOM in connection with the opening. Futura Laboratories' own retrospective describes the shoes primarily as gifts for people close to the artist, with two additional pairs unexpectedly distributed through a customer raffle. It identifies 24 original owners. The title itself began as a play on 4-LOM, the Star Wars bounty hunter, before Futura reshaped the phrase around questions of money, motivation, desire, greed, friendship and creativity.

That idea was built directly into the object's scarcity. The currency print was not merely decorative. FLOM asked whether recipients would retain something given through friendship and cultural association, “for love”, or convert its scarcity into financial value, “or money”. As secondary-market values around the original Dunk increased, the premise became increasingly literal.

The skate deck followed in 2005. Sotheby's describes Futura as having produced a selection of FLOM decks after the original sneaker project, each carrying the same international-currency motif and signed by the artist. Crucially, no reliable primary record establishing a total deck production quantity has been located. The frequently repeated figure of 24 belongs securely to the original FLOM sneakers and should not automatically be transferred to the skateboard edition.

Surviving public records also reveal that FLOM decks are not completely uniform. Sotheby's documents a signed example measuring 75 × 19.5 cm, while a 2005 deck from Maripol's personal collection measures 74.9 × 20.3 cm. Other auction records have documented larger boards approaching 79 cm in length. This suggests that more than one physical specification circulated, although no sufficiently authoritative source has yet established that one size represents a prototype or sample and another the released version. The Archive therefore does not assign sample status to this example solely on the basis of its dimensions.

Nor is there sufficient evidence to describe the deck itself as a Nike-manufactured object. Its graphic derives directly from Futura's Nike SB FLOM project, and surviving decks have subsequently been paired with original FLOM sneakers in important collections and auction offerings. Institutional records for the standalone deck, however, consistently catalogue it under Futura rather than documenting Nike as its manufacturer. The distinction matters: this is best understood as a Futura FLOM object with a direct conceptual relationship to the Nike SB project, rather than automatically as a Nike product.

The skateboard makes the original FLOM proposition particularly effective. Unlike a sneaker preserved unworn in a collection, a skate deck is designed to be physically consumed through use. Riding it would progressively destroy the printed surface, signature and financial value; preserving it as an art object prevents it from fulfilling its original functional purpose. The deck therefore makes the question contained in its title unusually literal: use the object, or preserve its value.

The example documented by Disndat was acquired from an American collector in 2019. It had been retained as a display object and carried no surviving shrink-wrap, barcode or retail packaging. The hand-applied Futura signature was subsequently authenticated by James Spence Authentication, and the object was also examined and authenticated during the Sotheby's sale process. Sotheby's records the deck as signed in black felt marker, measuring 75 × 19.5 cm, with only a slight paint scratch to the reverse.

Disndat retained the deck for several years before bringing it to market through Sotheby's, where it was sold at a substantial increase over its original acquisition cost. The transaction is distinct from Disndat's later involvement with the white LIVESTRONG FLOM sample sneakers; the objects were acquired at different times from different sources and share only Futura's underlying currency-print language. The deck is recorded independently because its significance lies in the earlier FLOM project and in the way a single graphic concept moved between footwear, skate culture, art and collecting.