With the Indianapolis Colts going to the Super Bowl and the Vancouver Olympics this month, I have been all about sports lately. I type this while watching Lindsey Vonn ski perfectly and gloriously to the first U.S. gold medal in the Alpine event. A few weeks ago, while our beloved Colts were preparing for the big game, the Indianapolis Museum of Art was all atwitter over a bet developing between our fearless leader, Max Anderson, and the New Orleans Museum of Art’s John Bullard. You know how the story ends: we lost the game, and now the IMA prepares to ship off our beautiful Turner to NOMA. You can read the whole story as described by the instigator Tyler Green.
But why was it such a surprise to everyone (ESPN, bloggers, sports fans) that museum folk are sports fans, too? Sports are generally seen as incongruous with arts, even by me, but a tweet by my former professor Jenny Mikulay got me thinking about sports in a different light.
“I don’t understand it when people think sports/games and art/culture are unrelated–they are the same.” -JGMikulay
This is such a wise statement, albeit one which might be difficult to agree with when standing in the midst of a beer-soaked, blue-clad screaming throng. Yes, inebriated with culture! But why do we apportion sports within culture in this way? Games, a natural occurrence in most children’s lives, are an excellent way to learn about relationships and strategy and can develop over hundreds of years or be invented spontaneously. They are a physical manifestation of artistic communication.
Hundreds of years ago, the influence of sports and games on the visual arts was a little more traditional:
This 1565 painting, Winter by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, which resides at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, displays curling in the background. Curling is now an Olympic Sport.
Movement in dance, theatre or martial arts has long been considered an art form. Now, the lines are blurring between sports and games experiences, performance arts and visual art. The artist duo Type A immediately comes to mind (the IMA is heavily involved with these guys, currently producing a documentary and installing their work in 100 Acres) as a contemporary artist pushing the boundaries of what art is and how it is interpreted. We have had very memorable experiences with Type A here at the IMA.
The work Push, by Type A, explored games and the meanings of masculinity and physical relationships.
I asked some of my fellow IMA bloggers about sports vs. art and got a wide range of answers:
I grew up with a stream behind my parents house, and when it got cold enough we would play hockey on the ice. Looking back probably not the safest idea, but we all survived. All it took was a few neighbors, rocks substituted for hockey pucks, and rogue sticks found in the nearby woods. For the goals we’d shoot for a hole in the ice!
When you mentioned art in sports marbles came to mind. My grandparents had a stash of old beautiful marbles. Of course, I had my favorites because all of the marbles were different. Looking at them was just as fun as playing the game. Not so sure you can consider the game of “marbles” a sport, but then again… curling. -MattRoller derby! I’m not a ‘traditional’ sports fan… I love being a part of and watching grass-roots, d.i.y. sports… there’s a lot of passion and hard work that go in to it. -Kate
Nothing really comes to mind other than how much I loved attending IU basketball games when I went to school down there. Assembly Hall is very small and very vertical for a stadium and sometimes I feared it would collapse when people started cheering and stomping and clapping. It was such a crazy environment (college basketball as a whole, and Assembly Hall specifically) that I haven’t seen matched in any other sport (I have been to lots of NBA, NFL, MLB games, and even a few soccer games including a Real Madrid game with Daniel..and nothing comes close to crazy college basketball). -Dan
This may be too marketing-esque, but did you know that Shaun White has a couple snowboarding games for the Wii that are pretty sweet? The first one is, at least… I haven’t picked up the second yet (came out this past Nov). Shaun had some ridiculous runs last night, didn’t he? -Ed
I also got a few really interesting links about great sports places here in Indy. Richard sent me info on the US Track and Field HQs and NCAA Hall of Fame. Rob noted the National Art Museum of Sport, located right at my school (!), which I intend to check out as soon as possible. Looks like they have a GREAT collection!
Skiier, by Bernard Fuchs, at the National Art Museum of Sport.
So, how do you see sports and culture? I’ll consider this more, as well, while I watch Lindsey rack up some more medals. Go Team USA!
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:21 am
Sweet tattoo!
February 23rd, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Haha… Thanks Matt! It’s squished on one side because I drew it in the car on the way to the game!
April 12th, 2010 at 9:47 am
That is a huge Tat! Well done!
can lights
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