Art And The Male Athlete
At first, the art world and the sports world may not seem like a natural coupling. But the Wexner Center’s current exhibition Hard Targets, on view through April 11, turns that assumption on its head. It’s a sprawling multimedia exhibition featuring nearly 70 works exploring the male athlete and the sports world in general – the stereotypes, rituals, commercialism, media imagery, and more, and from the locker room to the stadium. The art is by turns surprising, provocative, contemplative and funny, with 21 artists from Matthew Barney to Jeff Koons to Glenn Ligon looking at the sports world from a wide variety of perspectives. You’ll see images of or references to David Beckham, ZinÈdine Zidane, Michael Jordan, Greg Oden, Muhammad Ali, Larry Byrd and countless other athletes. Sports depicted include football, basketball, wrestling, soccer, baseball, boxing and more – in photography, video works, large-scale installations, sculpture, painting and more. Air Jordans (and Air Jordan shoeboxes) get the star treatment, as do basketball hoops (elongated with artificial hair, by Kori Newkirk), team pennants (Cary Leibowitz’s humorous pieces on the ramp), sports colors (check out Mark Bradford’s ballgown-type dress in the photographic installation Pride of Place – and check him out trying to play basketball in the gown in a video outside the Wex), a punching bag (don’t get too dizzy walking around it reading the words of Muhammad Ali), and a host of other surprises around every turn. And there’s even a local connection: photographer Catherine Opie took some portraits of Bexley High School football players for this exhibition, which also features an array of her football “landscapes” and portraits from around the country.
Hard Targets curator Christopher Bedford studied art history and played football at Oberlin, and in this exhibition he strives to tear down the barriers between the two worlds – or at least get them to start talking. To that end, the Wexner Center is offering buy-one-get-one-free admission to anyone holding a ticket stub from any Ohio State athletics event during the run of the exhibition. The Wex is also handing out buy-one-get-one coupons at the Arnold Sports Fest. Admission to the galleries is always free to members and students, and free to everyone Thursday from 4p-8p and the first Sunday of every month. The rest of the time, admission is $5. Gallery hours are Tuesday–Wednesday and Sunday 11a–6p, and Thursday–Saturday 11a–8p (closed Mondays). Walk-In Tours are held Thursdays at 5p and Saturdays at 1p.
A free gallery guide accompanies the show, and the free panel discussion Spectator/Sport: Athletics, Art, and Masculinity will be held March 2 at 7p (go to wexarts.org/ed for more information).
A related exhibition is on view just steps away from the Wex at the Cartoon Research Library through April 9: Let the Games Begin: A Century of Sports Cartoons. Find out more about this exhibition, organized in conjunction with Hard Targets, at www.cartoons.osu.edu.
More info: wexarts.org/ex or 614.292.3535.
Global GLBT Cinema
Out@Wex Returns
It’s back: a GLBT film fest par excellence. Join us in early March at the Wexner Center for the fourth annual Out@Wex film festival, featuring the best and the brightest on the global GLBT cinema scene. This year’s festival is a three-day, eight-film extravaganza featuring visiting artists and such titles as the classic 1977 documentary Word Is Out, considered the first feature-length documentary on gay and lesbian identity; Spring Fever (screening March 6), a 2009 film banned for five years in China about a married man having a gay affair that his wife threatens to expose; the 2009 film Eyes Wide Open (screening March 4), set in Jerusalem’s orthodox Jewish community; The Country Teacher (March 5), a 2008 film from the Czech Republic about an unrequited crush; and more. In all, this series offers a sampling of the diverse and vibrant GLBT film scene across the globe, and gives audiences a rare chance to see these films on the big screen.
Join us for the annual Out@Wex Celebration Party on Friday, March 5 from 7p-9:30p in the cafÈ, with a cash bar and light hors d’oeuvres. Friday will also feature a visit from director Su Friedrich, who will introduce two of her short films.
Click to www.wexarts.org/outatwex for complete Out@Wex listings; come to one or come to several. Films are shown evenings as well as during the day on Saturday. Tickets for each screening are $7 for the general public, and $5 for members, students, and senior citizens (call 292-3535 or purchase at the door). All films will be screened in the Wex’s Film/Video Theater, 1871 N High St. Convenient parking is available in Ohio State’s Ohio Union Garage just south of the center. (You can also consider becoming a Wexner Center member at a 15% discount off regular membership price, along with two free tickets to an Out@Wex film or two free film passes; mention “Out@Wex” to join.)
A full slate of community partners and sponsors have come on board for this festival, including BRAVO, Equality Ohio, HRC Columbus Steering Committee, Kaleidoscope Youth Center, Ohio State’s GLBT Alumni Society, Ohio State’s Multicultural Center, Stonewall Columbus, and outlook, among others.
Out@Wex is also held in conjunction with the world premiere of Reid Farrington’s Gin & “It,” a technically dazzling theater production that combines live theater with excerpts from Hitchcock’s classic 1948 film Rope. Among other things, the show touches on the homosexual subtext in the Hitchcock movie, which is based on a play itself based on the Leopold and Loeb murder. In the making of the Hitchock film, the homosexuality of the lead characters was referred to as “it.” In this new theater show, this once-taboo subtext is brought out of the closet. World premiere performances are March 4–7 at the Wexner Center. Visit www.wexarts.org/pa or call 614.292.3535 for more information and tickets.
The Wexner Center is a member organization of the Columbus Arts Marketing Association. For more information, visit www.camaonline.org.
photo credit stuff
Cary Leibowitz
Homo State, 1989
2 felt pennants
9 x 24 in. each
Courtesy of Alexander Gray Associates, New York
On view in Hard Targets
Hank Willis Thomas
Scarred Chest, 2003
Lightjet print
30 x 20 in.
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
On view in Hard Targets
The Country Teacher
Courtesy of Film Movement
Screening March 5 at 9:15 pm as part of Out@Wex
Eyes Wide Open
Screening March 4 at 7 pm as part of Out@Wex
