Zen Marie’s Three Stadia, a three channel installation, is currently on view at Museum Africa in Newtown for the SPace: Currencies in Contemporary African Art exhibition. This show, also referred to as “The Artists of Africa,” is a special “2010 FIFA World Cup Host City Johannesburg Event,” apparently working to broadening soccer tourists’ perceptions of South African (or just African?) culture(s). Obviously, the World Cup is huge boon for South African tourism, and the various events and sponsorships developed to support that industry present certain challenges and conflicts, particularly between how the country would like to be seen and the disparate realities that exist. Zen Marie’s piece works to demonstrate the efforts that have gone into “cleaning up” Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town. The installation features video taken prior to the World Cup, of areas within what would be FIFA’s 800M “security ring” around the stadiums, depicting the pre-existing realities of each city.

Some fun illustrations of soccer stars, featured in Football Heroes Gold: The 150 greatest players in World Cup history – 45 artists embark on a visual journey through the world of football. The artists come from a variety of countries and seem to imbue aspects of each footballer’s character. Each player’s profile is reminiscent of collectible soccer cards. I love the diversity of aesthetics featured.

Carsten Höller’s Pink Sphere could be a gigantic, non-functional soccer ball, couldn’t it? If the artist is busy coming up with these awesome slides, he certainly is down for some fun. Another set of Spheres, designed as public art, are apparently designed to be entered by humans. Imagine being inside the World Cup ball. Relational aesthetics is easier to get into when it’s at least fun.

I don’t really read Italian, but I surmise that this is a chart of the sponsors of each participating World Cup team (albeit a few days old at this point). Who will win it all: Nike or Adidas? When it comes down to corporations supporting each team, what does “World Cup” really mean?

Gabriel Orozco, “Pinched Ball” (1993)

“I don’t take photographs thinking that they are going to be art. I take the photographs thinking that I need to keep the moment, because I need to look at it afterwards.”
— Gabriel Orozco

As beautiful as the sentiment is, I really don’t know why I should care about this soccer ball. Orozco’s chic 1990s conceptualism feels lazy and dated today.

Image via Art:21

by the TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris advertising agency in Cape Town

Adidas appropriates South African barbershop signs to promote the Confederations Cup later this year. As much as I like the aesthetics of these images, the politics of appropriating local culture for the sake of advertising are off-putting.