Johnny Come Lately

I've recently become obsessed with Johnny Weir - I'm late to this bandwagon.  As it happens, the first sport I followed with any seriousness was figure skating - but I've ignored the men's competitions especially in the past few years.

My bad, because Weir is a revelation (check out his show Be Good Johnny Weir).  The media's difficulty in accepting both his athleticism and his fabulousness has been stunning - but Weir gets a perfect score from me.  The folks at That's Gay take this on, and I can't say it any better than they do. (Thank you Vince for sharing this video with me!)





[March 17: Outrageously - Johnny Weir has been deemed "not family friendly" and excluded from the Stars on Ice tour! See Clips and Chips.]

"Quite Unfit": English Women's Football History on Film

From the British Film Institute, a short film about the 1921 ban against women playing football:



You can watch another film about this period in English women's football history - a compilation of early film footage and photographs documenting the background for the Dick, Kerr's Ladies football team. 

Union of Los Angeles Fútbolistas

I just finished a workout in my local park here in Los Angeles, and got into a conversation about soccer with a park employee. He affirmed that when the city renovated the park, it placed (underutilized) baseball fields there to get rid of the adult Latino men who were attracted to the park for its soccer games. How, exactly, is that not discrimination?  And what's up with these park rec centers and the near complete absence of programming for adult women (apart from Yoga and, like, cooking classes).

Time for a Union of Los Angeles Fútbolistas?

 

Alma Lopez, La Briosa 

Acrylic on Canvas, 12"x12", 2006

Hard Targets: Sport & Art at the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio

The Wexner Center, on the campus of Ohio State University, is hosting Hard Targets, a gorgeous exhibit of contemporary art centered on images of men and sport curated by Christopher Bedford (who gives me a run for the money in terms of fanaticism).  The installation of Douglas Gordon and Philip Parreno's art-film Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait is intensely moving and worth a visit in and of itself.  There is a terrific selection of Catherine Opie's photographs of high school football players, you can see Sam Taylor Wood's video portrait of Beckham taking a nap, and a lot of fabulous basketball art.

On the right is a painting by Jonas Wood, and on the left, a piece by Kori Newkirk. I have an art-crush on Newkirk's sculptures - basketball hoops from which are draped elongaged "nets" made from braided & beaded hair - in other words, he's given the basketball hoop an extension. I wrote an essay, "Soft Subjects," for the show, and you can download a nicely illustrated pdf from the exhibition website (it's towards the bottom of the page).