We had our own sports week last month, because we think they often get the shaft in the realm of thinking about games. Now, a curator named David Little at the Minneapolis Institute of Art is taking the same tack for the art world. Titled “the Sports Show,” it will feature work such as Richard Avedon’s 1963 photo of a steely Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) on a New York playground and Kota Ezawa’s 2008 digital animation of the fight at a Pistons-Pacers game that ended with Ron Artest punching a fan in the face. (You should read Grantland’s oral history on the “Malice at the Palace.”) The show also features works by Diane Arbus, Andy Warhol, Wolfgang Tillmans, Martin Parr, and Stanley Kubrick.
“In the art world, there’s such an incredible prejudice against sports that it’s not taken seriously as a cultural form,” says Little. “I’m not trying to advocate in this show that sports is the source of all artistic work, but it’s a really fascinating subject.”
If you’re still in doubt, read art critic Dave Hickey’s “The Heresy of Zone Defesnse” and watch this clip of Dr. J. You will be convinced.
[Via Art News]