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).
"Hard Targets" sounds like such a great show. I wonder if it would be possible/or if there are any plans for it to be shown anywhere else? (ideally san francisco). i would love to see the two channel installation of "zidane" - i've only seen it single channel i did see it in a theater at the YBCA where the sound brought tears to my eyes.
ReplyDeletewish i could've been there for the sport+art round table.
The class I visited where we talked about art and football was Kota Ezawa's grad seminar titled "grad seminar". at the end of the class we went across the street to a park to play a bit and it was a great success: the class started an email titled 'munipal de futbol' and are starting a weekly kickabout!
also really enjoyed your essay contribution for the show too!
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