Updated: May 2002

"The idea of making a visual diary of snowboarders culture is so obvious and zeitgeisty that one's first impulse is to dismiss it. But Marcopoulos and his editor have produced something complex and compelling: a worldless narrative that does for the slacker parka set what Larry Clark's 1995 film Kids did for teenage sex. Which is to say there's precious little glamour here, only attractive young men pitting their bodies against hard snow and an endless succession of boring motel rooms. Credit Marcopoulos's voracious eye (with a subcredit to Nan Goldin) and Cortez's savvy sequencing for the book's unexpected poignancy." —Andy Grunberg, "Coffee Table," Bookforum

"[Marcopoulos'] dedication to craft imbues his work with a unique visual acuity and conceptual framework, as well as a fully immersed fanaticism toward his subject.... Transitions and Exits delivers the private moments and personal signifiers of the professional snowboarder's life with the inventiveness of a freestyler and the silent stillness of a mountain's virgin snow." —Carlo McCormick, Paper

"While most of snowboarding's imagery is focused upon nano-seconds of regimented action, photographer Ari Marcopoulos takes the big picture... Transitions gets past the contest banners, branded graphics and marketing hype surrounding snowboarding to tell it like it is. Most notably, Transitions discards these made for media moments, and instead focuses upon true-to-life environments—a lot of hotels, a lot of airports and a lot of abject movement. And occasionally, indescribable moments of freedom and life in the mountains.... Transitions and Exits is a real look at an unreal world... Put it on your coffee table and fight the 'brain-dead' stereotype of snowboarding." —Snowboarder

"...the quintessential boarding book..." —New York magazine

"...Marcopoulos paints a powerful picture of the new rock stars of the 21st century: sponsored snowboarders traveling the world in search of powder stardom." —Blue

"[Marcopoulos'] photographs are a fresh look at snowboard subculture where the body is predominant, sex is notably absent and melancholy abounds." —Dutch

" The photographer might not have been squinting as homegrown seeds pop off a waft of smoke in his eyes, but these pictures of partying and exhaustion seem lost in an authentic haze to at least signal a secondary buzz. Black eyes, swollen faces, cracked ribs, sweet smiles with goofy teeth and nothing much to say rhyme along between the most beautiful snowscapes 35mm photography can deliver." —eyestorm.com

"In keeping with his legacy, his photos for Transitions and Exits present an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the day-to-day lives of some of professional snowboarding's most elite personalities. From their boredom when not riding to their injuries, excesses, and vices, Marcopoulos captures it all in an energetic and spell-binding way." —Strength

"Marcopoulos concentrates on the more pedestrian aspects of boys' life on the circuit: porn, bongs, videogames, unmade beds. The result is an unexpectedly melancholic collection of photos of some of the world's most famous, daring boarders...caught in contemplative moments." —Spin

"...an absorbing look at the captivatingly banal, often sedentary, downtime of a subculture typically defined by its gonzo risk-taking and extreme physical demands—much of it, remarkably, shot on standard 35mm film and developed at one-hour photo shops." —Detour

"The result of Marcopoulos' travails is an exceptional book: The freestyle photographs are so carefully curated that the story of a life appears to have been told..." —Odyssey

"Transitions and Exits reads like a modern anthropological study of a 21st century subculture and it is Marcopoulos' sharp sense of observation for habits, narratives, traditions, and behaviors that gives this book its depth and beauty." —Picture

"Transitions and Exits (so the mysterious book title) celebrates a conspiratorial youth culture that was created around a type of sport that cannot be measured by success nor by public performance but only by a pure private pleasure: the collective fulfillment of one's own skillfulness." —Frankfurter Rundschau

"Marcopoulos' photographs take a look at a previously unpenetrated subculture—snowboarders—and their quest for fresh powerder and perfect tricks—the snowboarder's equivalent to the surfer's 'ninth wave.'" —THE Magazine

"Ari doesn't take shit and neither does his 176-paged hardcover book. Buy it..." —Transworld Snowboarding