Jerry Hsu: ”How About Never”
Interview conducted on the occasion of Jerry Hsu’s exhibition at Rectangle Room.

Rectangle Room
Jerry Hsu — How About Never
September 10–October 3, 2026
Rectangle Room at Primary Photographic
113 Eldridge St, New York, NY 10002

Interview by James Maher

Can you start by giving us the general details of your new book? Just a frame of it.

Yeah, so the book is photographs that I made while living in Los Angeles. I moved there in 2011, and it runs to the present, so it's about a 15- or 16-year span of time. All the photos were taken in Los Angeles. And it's just a record of my emotional reality while living there.

In the early days, did you know you wanted to turn this into a book? Did you envision yourself transitioning to a photographer from pro skateboarding?

Yeah, I always had that. I always imagined myself being a photographer. Being a skateboarder did not ever stop me from making photographs. I always intended for this project to exist.
I try not to think too much about whether something will be in a book, or books in general. I don't really work like that. I kinda just—I photograph patterns that I like, and then while I look through the archive, a narrative will appear to me. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I try not to think about things. I try not to shoot in too much of a themed way. I really just trust the patterns that I see.

Do you mind telling me about the title, How About Never? It can mean something very different, whether you're saying it to someone or someone's saying it to you. How did the title come about?

It's strange, 'cause I've had the title for years and years, and I don't really know where it came from. It was just something I heard, and I thought it was funny. I do like that it's a little tongue in cheek, and I do like that I'm not saying it. I feel like it's being said to me. Maybe everything is saying that to me all the time. I like that it's a little bit funny, but it also denotes a bit of rejection, which is something that I'm constantly dealing with on small and large levels.

You've said that near the end of the bookmaking process, when you were editing, you realized the project was not just about you and your time living in LA after moving from the Bay Area, but also about your relationship with your ex-wife. Do you mind talking a bit about that? Was it a sudden epiphany? Do you think that, subconsciously, the wheels had been turning in the back of your head?

Yeah, towards the end of the edit—the book had pretty much been completed—and I just... It was an epiphany where I started to realize that my emotional state and emotional journey in my relationship coincided with not only the making of the photographs, but the editing process. Because as I was editing the book, we were separating, so I think it just naturally got in there. I didn't really do it on purpose.
I think one of the main themes in the book is transformation. There's a lot of deterioration, accidents, fire, or things like that. There are many opposing forces, fire and water. I realized that I was also transforming at the same time into something else, and it was a painful experience. My marriage was—I love my wife still. My marriage was a success, but it did live its life. I think it transformed the both of us. Those images really speak to the pain that you need to experience in order to become something else. A rebirth.

When you say you've transformed, is there an easy way to describe how you were 15 years ago to now?

I think the main thing that I have learned is how to be a little bit more honest with myself and the things that I need. Because I think I generally was either not aware of what I needed, or I simply thought it was better for me to put other things before myself. But in the end, it created a reality that was too painful. I think that's the main difference between who I was and who I am now. Obviously I'm not completely a new person. I've just been able to acknowledge certain things about my life.

I saw in one of the videos, correct me if I'm wrong, that you like masks and collecting masks. Do you feel like within society you had to put on a mask? Sorry, my parents are both psychiatrists, so I like to get into the weeds with this stuff.

That's okay. My girlfriend's a psychiatrist.
I know what video that's from, that's very old. I don't really collect masks. But I think in normal life, in relationships, I think there's a feeling of—I think most people want to, they do not want to cause friction. And the way that they adapt is to try and—they have a facade or a persona that they portray or that they enact, in order to avoid pain. It's most people's motivation, I feel, just to go through life and to try and avoid as much pain as possible. But much of it is necessary. Unfortunately, yeah, wearing a mask for too long is—it inevitably will harm you more than it will help you.

Do you think part of the transformation is that you're better at not putting aside pain, and kind of processing it?

Yeah, it's funny because learning about your behavior that harms you still doesn't really guarantee that you will change at all. Self-awareness is only the beginning of what you need to do in order to grow, or treat yourself better, or understand the world. I don't know. I feel like everything is just a little bit too fresh, and I'm not that much different. I've just been shown a few things.

I connect to that. I think about how I had been pushing down the pain so hard, so much, but now it's easier to bring it to the surface and deal with. And part of that is figuring out exactly where my boundaries are. Growing up, were you okay at school? Did you fit in well?

I think that being the child of immigrants, being non-white, especially from the Asian diaspora, it's this matter of desperately trying to fit in. And not to be dramatic, but there is sort of an internal violence of assimilation, trying to not be singled out, not be othered, even though that's literally impossible to avoid. But yeah, I think in all forms of life, from the beginning to the end, I feel like there is just so much work you have to put in to fit in, if that's what you want.
I made a decision early on to try and reject that so much. At first, I was trying to fit in so badly, and then I think when I found skateboarding, it helped me understand that I did not need to accept any available forms of life that were being presented to me. I could pretty much just do whatever I wanted. And being sponsored and getting money and all that stuff, it only reinforced my sort of autonomy and ability to do that, which I'm very lucky for. But yeah, it was a roller coaster, my search for identity.

The skateboarding culture, LA culture, and New York as well, have always taken in outsiders and people who have wanted to escape something. Do you feel a connection to that?

Yeah, I think when I started, skateboarding was generally, it was a little bit scary. It was not very inviting. It was not easy to make other friends that were skateboarders. I feel like there is a dichotomy there, because on the one hand it is, but on the other hand, it isn't. It's very outwardly intimidating. That's how I felt, anyways. But once you become accepted, it really forged lifelong friendships.
Also everyone had this shared experience where they did not view reality in the same way as everyone else. But we found some kinship within each other that helped us be creative, have courage to travel, and fight a lot of the systems of our families—and systems in general.

It's interesting to see how skateboarding can be a springboard for creative people to enter the arts, such as writers, filmmakers, and photographers. Do you know many people who went into the arts after?

Yeah. I know lots of people that have become painters and writers, musicians, actors, directors. I think it comes from the type of person who's drawn to skateboarding in the first place. Being part of that community encourages and fosters creativity, and the lack of any type of structure or rules is definitely something that's both a good and bad thing. I think that creative people are drawn to wanting to skateboard, and then once they become skateboarders, they become a part of this world where their curiosity is rewarded. I feel that really encourages people to learn and search and explore.

I have a couple questions about LA. You de-centered the project—you didn't want these obvious LA symbols. You also said you have no claim or authority to talk about LA. But at the same time, this outsider perspective is important. Can you explain your perspective of LA to a New Yorker, to someone who doesn't know it from the inside like you do now?

I wouldn't say that I know LA from the inside. I am an outsider, and I simply was curious about how I would interpret my environment. That's all I really thought about. I never thought about showing LA. I intentionally avoided anything that would look like LA, even though that's impossible. I even tried to not include any photos that had palm trees.
The clichés of Los Angeles are something that I wanted to fight against. But in the end, I didn't really need to fight that hard, because the way that I see it, there's no crossover. As a skateboarder, the way that I interpret the environment pushed me into these places that don't seem like LA. 'Cause where we go to skate, sometimes they're in the most outsider-y areas. My routes in LA, I never went to Hollywood Boulevard or Beverly Hills or anything that I thought was indicative of the clichés of Los Angeles. I had no interest in that whatsoever.

In both LA and New York, it's almost like there are two halves. There are the people who come looking for the cliché, and then there are the people coming to survive and do their thing.

I was way more interested in the minutiae of LA, the melancholy of LA, which is something people don't go there to see or even want to look at. I wanted to see if I could make it interesting.

Do you take most of your photographs while you're traveling by skateboard or car or walking, or is it a mix of everything?

I literally never have my skateboard with me when I photograph. It's mostly car and walking. I'll just drive to an area, walk around, get in my car, go to another area. That's the thing about LA—it's so vast, and it's really not even a city. It's just hundreds of regions. And so it was hard. It took a lot of time to do this. I envy the photographers in New York who can just walk outside and there's just so much happening.

What do you think about the car culture and driving around all the time? Are you used to it from where you grew up?

I'm used to it from the way I grew up in Northern California, where you need a car. But LA is a different animal. It really does live and breathe that stereotype of a car city. I don't mind it so much. I actually enjoy it, but it is a bit isolating. In New York you can walk down the street and run into someone you know. That almost never happens in LA.
But I relate to the isolation; photographing is very isolating. I cannot do it with other people. I find it very strange when someone tries to invite me to go shoot photos with them. I'm just like, I can't do that. I cannot have another person around. No offense. It's a very solitary activity to me. It's meditative. It's work, but I also enjoy the solitude. So for me personally, being in a car, being by myself, walking down the street—I think I kinda need it.

You've described yourself as "almost nihilistic," but also "obsessed with hope." Do you feel more bleak or hopeful, or do you go back and forth?

I go back and forth. The almost nihilistic thing is funny because that was just a joke I made, and it turned into this pull quote. Taken out of context, it made me seem so nihilistic, which I completely am not. I'm actually so hopeful. Just the amount of failure that I have to tolerate making these types of photographs—I can only be hopeful. Being hopeful is the only reason that I can get out of the house and actually attempt to do this kind of stuff, because I can go five, six, seven days in a row and get nothing, which is pretty disheartening. I always say that I'm a little bit eternally hopeful. Despite what feelings you might get from the images, I'm very optimistic.

Do you find yourself daydreaming a lot? Do you get lost in your thoughts?

Yeah, I daydream constantly. I run a business, and the amount of executive functioning that I lack because I just daydream all the time is so frustrating to everyone around me. It's kinda crazy. I would never change that about me. I love being a daydreamer, but it does come at a great cost.
A lot of the stuff that I photograph is just stuff that I happen to come across. But there are other aspects of my photography that I haven't really shown that much, where it is very intentional and staged. There's a lot of portraiture that I do. There's a lot of things that I'm curious about and think about all the time. And I go out and make it, but I just have never shown it. Almost all of the work in this book is just really just found.

Do you want to do more with your portraiture and other work in the future?

I think it's just a nice way to round out my practice, because I work on many different things at the same time, many different series. The portraiture is a helpful way for me to connect with people, because I do sometimes have trouble with the human connection aspect of life. Even though I have lots of friends, sometimes I'm just a little bit isolated, maybe intentionally invisible. So forcing myself to meet new people and make portraits of them is something that I'm trying to do to—I'm not trying to overcorrect, but I'm trying to connect with people, and the camera really does help me do that.

That's interesting. I connect to that a lot. Many artists, when they feel that disconnection in certain ways, they use their art to fill that hole. And, as you say, grow and transform.

I think sometimes you have needs, and sometimes you don't even know you have them, but you can use your art to help fulfill them.

I also connect when you talk about executive functioning. I have the same thing, and everyone's always like, "What are you doing? What are you working on?" Growing up in this neuro-normative world, I constantly felt shame when people would tell me to stop daydreaming, to pay attention. "Why are you doing this?" "Why are you doing that?" And then the million things in my head. But then over time, and I get this sense from you, you realize that you've actually created a shitload of stuff. Does it feel like that? Do you look back and think, "Actually, I've done all this amazing stuff?”

Yeah, I guess I just can't have it all, because I do appreciate what being so daydreamy has afforded me. It's given me so much. But it's just funny, because having low executive function, you can be so punished for it. You know what I mean? Like, you lose money. You don't pay your taxes on time. You're just like, "Fuck, damn, I didn't... Like, now I owe the IRS a shit ton of money because I just wasn't thinking. I just pushed all this stuff away from me." Because the other side of my brain is so active, I wouldn't really change the way that I am, but it is annoying. It's so annoying to have your head in the clouds so much. But whatever, it's okay. That's all I got.

How do you feel about finishing a book that's been such a big part of your life for so long? Like, on one hand it's climactic, and on the other hand it can be anticlimactic. Do you feel like you're at an inflection point? Or are you just kinda going with the flow, taking it a step at a time?

I would describe it as an inflection point, just because the project is so large to me, and it's so meaningful to me that I do feel like I've come out of it on the other side. Mainly I feel relief—It's a relief that this project is out of my life, and that I'm actually proud of it, because it's very difficult for me to feel a sense of pride.
So having done this, I do feel that way. And I think I've just gotten to the age where I've finally accepted the fact that I need to appreciate this in real time, as opposed to trying to look back and be like, "Oh, you did an okay job," or whatever. That's something that being in therapy for so many years has taught me: you need to appreciate your accomplishments in real time, because it's not gonna help you if you try to do it 10, 15 years down the line.

Can you tell us a little bit about what your Sci-Fi Fantasy brand is? I saw you describe the name as coming from the idea of an "AI trying to make friends online." How did the brand come about, and what is it?

I had retired as a pro skateboarder in about 2017 or '18. I was just feeling depressed, so I thought maybe I would change my life a little bit. Sci-Fi Fantasy started as an art project. I was actually depressed, and my wife, she told me to just write down some ideas. "Just write some names down. I think you'll... It's a nice exercise for you. You're good at it." And so I wrote down a bunch of names, and I don't even know what for. What was I gonna do with these names? I have no idea. But Sci-Fi Fantasy was something that jumped out at me, because it's something that is so ubiquitous, but it had never been put on a hat. I like that it sounded good. It was something that everyone could relate to immediately. And then I was like, "Okay, maybe I'll just make a hat out of it." And then it just blew up after that, and I just started making more stuff and making more stuff, and eventually it just snowballed into a skateboard brand.
It took a long time to understand what its aesthetic was. It took a year or two of making stuff. But it's funny, because in the beginning I really drew from corporate graphic design, and that actually came from my parents since I grew up in Silicon Valley. They were both computer engineers, so I spent a lot of time around cubicle culture, computer conventions, and electronics stores. Those aesthetics became a pillar of Sci-Fi's aesthetics.

It's interesting how things come full circle.

Yeah, sometimes. It is very funny, because in the beginning I thought it was gonna be more like '80s sci-fi horror, VHS-type art. And then when I started doing that, I was like, "This is totally not it." Also, in the space of skateboarding, it's like, where can you fit in and do something different? I thought about that too. I was like, "Okay, what does not exist? And what space can I fill?" And eventually what I landed on, I'm happy with. But yeah, I don't really know how to describe Sci-Fi. It's really just aesthetics that I like, that I appropriate in a way that I feel stands out within the aesthetics of skateboarding.
It's also fun to take everything that I've learned in my career and put it into a skateboard brand. But I will say, due to the low executive functioning, it is extremely difficult, and I often fantasize about total escape. It's very rewarding and I love doing it, but yeah, it's weird. I never thought I would be running a skateboard brand—but here I am.

You were represented by skateboard brands your whole life, and now you run your own. My final question, for the photo crowd—you talk about Ed Templeton giving you advice. Do you know him well? Can you talk about how he helped you with the book?

I've known Ed for a long time through the skateboard community. We actually shared a shoe sponsor, so I had the opportunity to spend time with him, and I had always looked up to him as an artist, not just a skateboarder. He was one of the few pro skaters who was actually showing his art, and it seemed like he really was putting his life into it. That was very inspirational to me, because it gave me permission to do the same thing.
With a very early draft of this book, I brought him a folder of photographs that I thought would work. He was very supportive, but he also told me that it looks like you're just trying to show your best photographs—like, you need to be much more intentional about what you're doing. This was like 15 years ago. And since then, I've made a few more books. I've worked with editors. I've collaborated more with other artists.
So gradually, I always took what he said to heart, in terms of what it means to be an editor. Because editing is arguably more important than making the photographs to me. I think I'm glad I waited 15 years. I'm glad that he said that, because editing is very difficult, and storytelling is very difficult. I never forgot what he said, 'cause he was like, "I don't really want to critique your work, but I will say, this does look just like a bunch of your favorite photographs. And that is not something that will be interesting in book form.”