Manchester is world-renowned for two types of cultural force: music and football. In the former, Oasis is currently sucking up the world’s attention via the band’s mega nostalgia tour for the heady days of Britpop. Less predictable is Manchester International Festival’s latest exhibition, which muses on the latter topic, looking at the beautiful game through the lens of art.
Titled Football City, Art United, the show at Aviva Studios follows MIF’s previous stab at examining the links between art and sport in the 2023 edition of the biennial, where artist Tino Sehgal joined forces with mega curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, World Cup and Champions League winner Juan Mata, and curator, writer and filmmaker Josh Willdigg to create a new piece of performance art.
Obrist, Mata and Willdigg return to co-curate this show, which has upped the ante by pairing significant names from contemporary art (Paul Pfeiffer, Philippe Parreno, Ryan Gander and Rose Wylie all feature) with football players such as Eric Cantona and Edgar Davids, as well as contemporary stars such as Manchester United’s Ella Toone and Arsenal’s Lotte Wubben-Moy. One pairing also draws on the past, with artist Jill Mulleady creating a work inspired by her personal memory of meeting Diego Maradona in Buenos Aires, where she grew up.
The resulting eleven works are eclectic though mostly less quirky than Sehgal’s choreographed artwork from 2023. The scene is set by Pfeiffer and Davids who create a sound installation which draws on the atmosphere of the tunnel that players journey through before entering a stadium. At Aviva Studios, visitors are sent in batches of 11 down a passageway into the show accompanied by a mix of recordings of real crowds roaring, stomping and singing. The work offers a visceral hint of the intensity that comes with being a footballer today.
Fame and pressure are recurring themes. In one of three works by Ryan Gander and Eric Cantona, a spotlight appears at random, following an individual around the show to illustrate the “isolating glare of celebrity”, while a documentary artwork by artist Suzanne Lacy and players Vivianne Miedema and Ali Riley sees a number of players from the women’s game interviewed about their experiences within a male-dominated industry. Their tales of sexism and abuse are heartbreakingly predictable.
There are cheerful moments too. Artist and fashion designer Bárbara Sanchez-Kane has created Brody, a flamboyant mascot inspired by legendary goalkeeper Jorge Campos, while former Manchester United player Shinji Kagawa collaborates with manga artist Chikyuu no Osakana Ponchan to create a comic book that mixes moments from Kagawa’s life with fantastical scenes to illustrate the transformative power of football.
Sport is increasingly stretching beyond its traditional boundaries and entering the realms of film, entertainment and fashion. Mixing football with art might for some seem a stretch too far – there is a risk that the Venn diagram of people passionate about both mediums is limited – though exhibitions such as this allow us to examine the cultural significance of the game, and how its tentacles reach beyond teams and tribalism into our broader collective psyche.
Most importantly, it shines a light on the complex human experiences and emotions of the players that come together to entertain us each year on pitches and in stadiums all over the world, a factor in the brutal if beautiful game that is all too often overlooked.
Football City, Art United is at Aviva Studios in Manchester until August 24; factoryinternational.org
