Symbols, signifiers, armour, fashion: football shirts are everywhere, and can mean anything. Our big summer exhibition – opening to coincide with the men’s Euros – looks at how artists have explored the power, ubiquity and recognisability of football shirts for a hundred years.
From constructivism in the 1920s to conceptualism in the 2020s, this is a century of football shirts being used to communicate ideas of community, belonging and aesthetics.
Starting with Varvara Stepanova’s radical, experimental designs for football kits in the early Soviet era, the show goes on to look at the role of football shirts in the creation of national identities in Croatia and Ghana, as expressions of bias, anger and division in the work of Rachel Maclean and Trackie McLeod, and as portable, wearable canvases in the work of Christian Jeffery, Martin Kazanietz and Diana Al-Shammari.
And that’s before we’ve even looked at teams who have taken inspiration from artists, like OGC Nice’s Yves Klein blue third shirt, Walthamstow FC’s William Morris kit, Leith Athletic’s Paolozzi patterned strip and an Ajax x Van Gogh collab that’s definitely not a bootleg, honest.
Brought to you by OOF, the world’s only contemporary art gallery in a football stadium, situated in Warmington House, a listed building in the heart of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Founded in 2018 by Eddy Frankel, Time Out London's Art & Culture Editor and Chief Art Critic, and Justin and Jennie Hammond, two North London curators and gallerists.
It’s not just shirts though, it’s also, you know, like, art: Rhys Coren’s psychedelic videos are based on classic ’90s kit patterns, Leo Fitzmaurice creates origami wallpaper by folding cigarette packets into mini football shirts, Jil Mandeng explores her mixed heritage in paintings that combine African masks with European shirts, while Jonathan Monk’s flag speaks to the global dominance of major sports brands.
Who knew there was so much to say about the relationship between art and football shirts?
Show runs 13 June to 28 September at OOF Gallery, N17.
Admission is free. Use entrance for the Tottenham Experience at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Open Mon, Thur, Fri 10-5. Sat 11-5. Sun 12-4. Closed Tue & Wed.
Opening hours are subject to change on event days.
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