SPORTS
EXIT
San Marcelo, 30 Madrid 28017 Spain
exit [at] exitmedia.net
Cover: Joao Penalva, The Prize song (from R.), 2001. Videostill. EXIT # 15 “SPORTS”
Main artists: Tracey Moffatt, Anderson & Low, Grazia Toderi, Jose Antonio Hernandez-Diez, Marie Jo Lafontaine, Robert Davies, Vik Muniz, Bleda y Rosa, Uri Tzaig, Leni Riefenstahl.
Texts by: Manuel Vazquez Montalban, Vicente Verdu, Jose Luis Pardo, Julian Garcia Candau, Felipe Hernandez Cava, Rosa Olivares, Seve Penelas.
The Olympic Games are not the only goal in sports. Throughout the year, every year, there are hundreds of national, European and world championships in soccer, track-and-field, swimming, basketball, tennis’ zillions of competitions requiring us be in good shape all the time. Sports are part of our lives and our culture and with this in mind EXIT has designed its issue number 15 as a particular viewpoint from the art world, so often diametrically opposed to physical fitness or sports competitions. Through the images of the selected artists and the articles written by several contributors the journal offers a view of the theme comprised of a combination of stories, criticism, irony, politic, sociology, humor, spectacle.
After the editorial by Rosa Olivares, “Cititus, altius, fortius”, we have published and therefore regained an essay by our cherished and admired Manuel Vazquez Montalban, “One Hundred Years of Sport”, from 1972. It is an overview from the stance of a sports fan, yet with this writer’s customary lucidity and from the point of view of a citizen maintaining a critical attitude toward the aspects giving rise to significant social repercussions.
Afterward, the basic thrust of the magazine revolves around 5 ideas, 5 sports concepts:
1.THE STADIUM – The place, the arena, the structure and the event attended by the masses; the writer and philosopher Jose Luis Pardo analyzes the ritual of sports in “The Rule of the Game”.
2.THE ATHLETE – Seve Penelas considers the individual sports practitioner to establish parallelisms and contrasts between artists and sports players in “Run artist, run”.
3.THE TEAM – In his text “The Team in Sport” Julian Garcia Candau, one of Spain’s masters of sports literature, addresses the importance of the group and the role of the leader.
4.VICTORY AND DEFEAT – Felipe Hernandez Cava‘s article “Defeat or Die” is inspired by winning and losing, the heads or tales of the sports stimulus, in a society wherein ‘how you play the game’ is no longer what matters.
5.COMPETITION AND RECREATION – The article “Sports Illusions”, by Vicente Verdu, elaborates on a set of ideas on sports as an increasingly significant social phenomenon with respect to the mechanisms and vested interests of professional competition.
Finally, a fragment of the Olympic Charter serves as an official counterbalance to the ideas expressed in most of the preceding texts, as its two initial chapters enthusiastically proclaim the virtues of sport, fair play and the commitments of the IOC and the nations of the world to pursue peace and cultural development.
Also, throughout the above-mentioned sections, there are reproductions of images by numerous artists: Carlos Amorales, Jonathan Anderson & Edwin Low, Marti Anson, Heike Baranowsky, Matthew Barney, Burt Barr, Bleda y Rosa, Maurizio Cattelan, Robert Davies, Silvia Gruner, Jose Antonio Hernandez-Diez, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Karine Laval, Kurt Markus, Ramon Masats, Boris Mikhailov, Tracey Moffatt, Vik Muniz, Jurgen Nefzger, Walter Niedermayr, Yoshua Okon, Catherine Opie, Joao Penalva, Paul Pfeiffer, Ambra Polidori, Leni Riefenstahl, Collier Schorr, Paul M. Smith, Grazia Toderi, Uri Tzaig and Hans van der Meer, among others. We thus complete another issue of EXIT, a stimulating aesthetic exercise for the mind.
Upcoming issue, in November, EXIT # 16 “WRITING PICTURES: TEXT AS IMAGE”.
EXIT. Quarterly, thematic publication on image and culture, photography and contemporary art. Bilingual edition with articles in English and Spanish. Published by Olivares & Associates.
San Marcelo, 30 Madrid – 28017 Spain Tel. +33 91 404 97 40 Fax +33 91 326 00 12
Information and special projects: exit@exitmedia.net
Subscriptions and back issues: circulacion@exitmedia.net
Available at museums, art centers, specialized bookshops in major cities in the international art circuit. International distribution by Idea Books, Amsterdam: idea@ideabooks.nl
Also published by Olivares & Associates: Exit BOOK -one magazine per year on art and contemporary visual culture books) and Exit EXPRESS -monthly magazine of information and debate on contemporary art. (Spanish editions only).
