Ben Brown
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Artists
  • Exhibitions
  • Fairs
  • Store
  • Events
  • News
  • About
  • Contact
  • EN
  • 简体
  • 繁體
Cart
0 items £
Checkout

Item added to cart

View cart & checkout
Continue shopping
Menu
  • EN
  • 简体
  • 繁體
  • Current
  • Past
  • Online

HANK WILLIS THOMAS
The Beautiful Game

Past exhibition
5 October - 24 November 2017 London
  • Overview
  • Works
  • Installation Views
Overview
Hank Willis Thomas, Perseverance, 2017

Hank Willis Thomas, Perseverance, 2017

The Beautiful Game will explore the intersection of art, sports and geopolitics. These arenas are often thought of as discrete and unrelated, but in fact they have significant overlap and resonance, particularly in relation to modernism, nationalism, colonialism, and human nature across time and culture. Containing sculptures referencing both Brancusi and football, and quilts made from football jerseys that reproduce iconic works of art by Matisse and Picasso as well as Ghanaian Asafo flags, The Beautiful Game alludes to skirmishes on the rugby field or football pitch as well as the battlefields of art, culture, and history.

 

Sport is often said to be a proxy for warfare, an "appropriate" channel for our inclinations towards division based on arbitrary signifiers such as tribe, nationality, skin colour, class, etc. This demarcation of "us" versus "them" appears throughout history and cultures; there is nothing that humans will not use as a basis for division and presumed superiority. In connecting sport - and specifically football, the most popular and among the most lucrative sports in the world, and one which relies heavily on the labour and skill of international players, frequently of the African diaspora - to this impulse, this exhibition asks us to see uncomfortable connections between our pasts and our presents.

 

The function and aesthetic of Asafo flags, which have been made from the colonial period to today by the Fante people of Ghana, developed in relation to African contact with Europe starting in the 18th century. Visual representations of military "companies," their primary function is to connote intra-company belonging and exert power and dominance over competing companies - us versus them, again. European modernism, with Brancusi, Matisse, and Picasso its herald bearers, developed in relation to European contact with Africa in the same period, whether through art and material culture, photographic images of African people and places, or interactions with individual Africans in Europe. Though poorly acknowledged, this debt cannot be ignored.

 

 

 

  • Elephant magazine: Interview
Share
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Email
Download Press Release
Works
  • Hank Willis Thomas, Visa, 2017
    Hank Willis Thomas, Visa, 2017
  • Hank Willis Thomas Champion (white), 2017

    Hank Willis Thomas

    Champion (white), 2017

  • Hank Willis Thomas, Perseverance, 2017
    Hank Willis Thomas, Perseverance, 2017
  • Hank Willis Thomas, Verve, 2017
    Hank Willis Thomas, Verve, 2017
  • Hank Willis Thomas, Hand of God, 2017
    Hank Willis Thomas, Hand of God, 2017
  • Hank Willis Thomas, Endless Column III, 2017
    Hank Willis Thomas, Endless Column III, 2017
  • Hank Willis Thomas, Switchski's Syntax, 2017
    Hank Willis Thomas, Switchski's Syntax, 2017
  • Hank Willis Thomas, Perseverance, 2017

    Hank Willis Thomas, Perseverance, 2017

  • Hank Willis Thomas, The Nightmare of the White Elephant, 2017

    Hank Willis Thomas, The Nightmare of the White Elephant, 2017

Close
Installation Views
  • Hank Willis Thomas The Beautiful Game Ben Brown 004
  • Hank Willis Thomas The Beautiful Game Ben Brown 005
  • Hank Willis Thomas The Beautiful Game Ben Brown 001
  • Hank Willis Thomas The Beautiful Game Ben Brown 002
  • Hank Willis Thomas The Beautiful Game Ben Brown 003
  • Hank Willis Thomas The Beautiful Game Ben Brown 009
  • Hank Willis Thomas The Beautiful Game Ben Brown 012
  • Hank Willis Thomas The Beautiful Game Ben Brown 007
  • Hank Willis Thomas The Beautiful Game Ben Brown 008
  • Hank Willis Thomas The Beautiful Game Ben Brown 006
Close

Related artist

  • Hank Willis Thomas

    Hank Willis Thomas

Back to Past exhibitions
Privacy policy
Cookie Policy
Manage cookies
Copyright © 2023 Ben Brown Fine Arts
Site by Artlogic
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Twitter, opens in a new tab.
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Join the mailing list
Artsy, opens in a new tab.

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Find out more about cookies.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences
Close

Join our mailing list

Signup

* denotes required fields

We will process the personal data you have supplied to communicate with you in accordance with our Privacy policy. You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.