ULTRA: ART FOR THE WOMEN’S WORLD CUP

Juno Calypso, An Unnecessary and Excessive Display of Celebration, 2019. Courtesy of the artist and OOF Magazine.jpg

Football is a monster. Football eats into the national consciousness. It hangs over the world like a heavy cloak, fostering resentment while triggering joy, building communities while tearing them apart, unifying while dividing. All of that conflict is written into the works in this show. It’s there in Rosie McGinn’s writhing Paul Gascoigne sculpture, a frenzied effigy to the best and worst of our national obsession. 

It’s there in Emma Cousin's contorted footballers, supremely agile and fiercely competitive. It’s there in the chintzy, quaint nationalism of Georgia Lucas-Going’s thimble-filled football chant video. It’s there in Lydia Blakeley’s paintings of Delia Smith's impassioned ‘Let’s be ‘avin you!’ call to arms.

In this show, football is a symbol of conflict between players and people, between society and individuals, between the individual and the crowd. It’s a symbol of war being waged over bodies, over signifiers of masculinity, over attempts to control aggression, over patriarchal dominance. It’s a symbol of power over yourself.

Football is a monster, and this is art for taming it.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

LYDIA BLAKELEY | JUNO CALYPSO | EMMA COUSIN | EMMELY ELGERSMA | GEORGIA LUCAS-GOING | ROSIE MCGINN | RHIANNON REBECCA SALISBURY | GRAY WIELEBINSKI

ULTRA: Art for the Women’s World Cup presented by OOF at J HAMMOND PROJECTS, London 14 June - 27 July 2019