- The Design Museum, Shad Thames
Being the sporty, athletic types that we are here at Art Wednesday, ahem, we bowled on down to the Design Museum on Monday afternoon to go and have a poke around their latest exhibition… about football, of all things! Well, not entirely about football, but considering how much football we follow, this exhibition might as well have been the World Cup final. So, after resisting the tourist-induced temptation to throw ourselves off Tower Bridge en route, we arrived at the Design Museum to find, lying in wait, what we could only describe as a small media circus. Our initial bafflement soon subsided, when we realised that there were in fact international footballers inside the building – hence the furore. Opting to keep a low profile, as the sports press were practically trying to decapitate each other with their cameras for a mere two seconds with some of African football’s big names, we sidestepped the chaos to have a nosey around the exhibition and a chat with the curator, Alex Newson.
The exhibition showcases the work of ten artists from the Creative African Network (CAN), who have collaborated with PUMA to design a football kit for each of the ten PUMA-partnered African national teams. Wandering around the exhibition as the madness went on elsewhere, we saw how each artist had incorporated their country’s culture and heritage into their designs – something that, given the rigidity of FIFA’s regulation on kit design, is something that presents more of a challenge than it might first seem. Alex explained that since many of the designs had changed quite dramatically from their inception to becoming a FIFA-approved kit, he had included each of the original works in the exhibition with an explanation of why the artists did what they did, as well as the finished products. He also told us how, refreshingly that the ten artists involved all had their own take on the brief – some chose to use symbolism that would be recognised the world over, whilst others used more subtle imagery that was confined to the country they were dealing with. The latter being the cultural/artistic equivalent of a private joke, if you will. All joking aside though, the exhibition is a unique look at how ten artists have chosen to portray their national identity, using a medium not usually known for its artistic input, bringing together sport and art, and throwing in a little African flair for good measure.
The exhibition is open for public viewing from November 8 – 27, 2011, 10.00am – 17.45pm.
For further information please visit: www.pumafootball.com, http://vision.puma.com, www.designmuseum.org
