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Artists have taken the football championships and run with them, creating art while listening to match commentary. And the results are on display.
SOCCER players may be having a ball on the field, but a bunch of artists have been having a ball of a different kind off the field, with paint, brushes and steel boards.
Reflections of a football match
Seventeen artists played against each other in pairs on canvas while watching the UEFA European Championship games in 2008. Each pair contributed to a single artwork, with each artist taking a turn to paint when a whistle was blown. The same exercise is to be repeated in next year's 2010 FIFA World Cup™.
"At the start of the match, rules were negotiated between the artists to determine how they would draw or paint in reaction to the game," says a statement. "What resulted from this exchange was a 90-minute long performative artwork which reflected the specific live soccer match during which it was made."
The result was seven colourful artworks of 2,5 metres by 1,2 metres which are now displayed outside the Arts on Main complex in Berea Street in the CBD. They will remain on display until 2010.
The idea came from a collaboration between Johannesburg artist Marcus Neustetter and Austrian artist Walter Stach in 2008. The two banged ideas around at the Bassline in Newtown last year.
The artists are David Andrew, Brenden Gray, Steven Mabuela, Rhett Martyn, Sengo Shabangu, Jabu Tshuma, Quinten Williams, Rasty or Bruno Buccellato, Philemon Hlungwani, Razik or Mfundu Mkhize, Keabetswe Mokwena, Kinsley Omoghite Asemota, Shime or Shimmy, Daniel Stompie Selibe, and Stacy Vorster. Stach and Neustetter also created works.
The artists also produced seven soccer artworks on canvases, which have been donated to a school in Orange Farm. "The idea to link soccer and art by doing a lot of artistic footwork materialised into an astonishing result and managed to engage communities usually not in dialogue with each other."
The project was sponsored by the Austrian embassy in Pretoria.
Stach has been in the country for the past two weeks, and both he and Neustetter produced drawings based on this year's Confederations Cup during Stach's residency at the project room, Right on the Rim, at Arts on Main in the CBD.
They laid out large sheets of paper and while listening to the soccer commentary from the South Africa-Spain game on Saturday, 20 June, produced several artworks.
These works will be on display at Arts on Main on Saturday, 27 June, where both artists will speak about their collaboration. The exhibition will open at 3pm, and the artists will speak at 6pm.
They will collaborate again next year for the World Cup games.
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