Gosh I have been so remiss with my blog in 2016. I have a lot going on this year and I don’t want to get all heavy with the blog and only write about big stuff…it’s supposed to be a place where I can share my ideas and thoughts about art and design.
I was so happy that the organisers used my Butterfly Shoes on the flyer for this show. I’ll try and explain what the show is about. About 40 international artists were showing work of various natures from photography to three-dimensional work which addressed sport in contemporary culture from a different angle, mostly through the artists’ observations.
The show was curated in a very good way, split over two sites, each section dealt with a sport in a different way for example there was a room dedicated to sports groups with work about women boxers, middle eastern girl skaters or gay-straight football alliances. There was another room which dealt with body image, showing beautiful photographs from a trans-swimming session and work about the issue of womens’ sporting body image.
Some work was handled in a light way like the beautiful gold chain basketball hoop by David Miguel and other work dealt with more serious issues about exploitation of parts of Rio for this summer’s Olympic games.
So my shoes fit in how? Well, they subvert the idea of a technical performance running shoe by adding the decoration of butterflies. What started out originally as a repair on a hole in the toe of the shoe took on a life of its own and became something more of a statement about masculinity and sporting prowess. Queering the running shoes turns them into a culturally confusing object, the shoes become unfamiliar and make us stop and look again and think.
We did a workshop too and people came to repair their own running shoes.
The show runs until 28th August at NGBK
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