Radical Art and Sports
Posted June 10, 2009 by dylanminer in Events
Images Courtesy of Lincoln Cushing
'Hasta la Victoria (Deportista) Siempre: Sports Imagery in Revolutionary Cuba.'
Unlike many of my artist and activist friends, I grew up as a jock. My dad was a gym teacher (physical education, sorry) and I was raised playing football/soccer, basketball, and running track. When I became involved in hardcore, I was shocked when a punk friend of mine told me that the politics of sport did not intersect with those of athletics. Who knew that sports and punk were so separate? I guess my ex-friend did not realize that Kevin Seconds was a huge b-ball fan and the 7 Seconds song 'I Hate Sports' was written tongue in cheek. Remember the basketball on the inside of the Drop Acid album?
Artist and activist circles don't fair much better in regards to our position on sports. Notwithstanding the writing of folks such as Dave Zirin and CLR James, very little has been written about the relationship between sports and radicalism. This weekend I will be in Bristol, UK lecturing on Cuban sports posters. Although many of us are familiar with the silkscreened posters from socialist Cuba, little is written about the role of sports images within the larger domain of Cuban poster history. Hopefully the paper I present this weekend, as well as the article and book chapter that will emerge from it, will begin to lay the groundwork for what we know about revolutionary Cuban sports posters.
If you are in Bristol, stop by Burwals at 4:00pm-6:0pm Sunday evening. I will be presenting on 'Hasta la Victoria (Deportista) Siempre: Sports Imagery in Revolutionary Cuba.'
The Visual in Sport
13-14 June 2009
A Two-Day International Conference at Burwalls
University of Bristol, UK
Download the poster or the program.
Comments
Yahnke, your going down. The gray bomber will rain three's down on you so fast you won't know what hit you. Unless of course it is an elbow to the ribs. You better start practicing your Kurt Rambis moves.
who is this Rambis character, I'm out of the loop? You gotta watch out for those radical artists like Lampert on the court, nothing but cheap shots, and trash talkin.
Dylan- They should of asked you to do the poster for the conference, because the one they made is ugly! That would have been awesome. Hope it went well...
Great post and good link.
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Interesting Dylan, I am curious how exactly you see sports and Radical Art/punk intersecting. Having also grown us as a jock, playing football, basketball and baseball (my dad was my high school football and basketball coach) I have seen few areas where these compliment each other. The obvious intense focus on competition seems to me to be the most difficult area to reconcile; or should we embrace that? Though when I get Nicolas Lampert on the basketball court no mercy is shown...
Posted by: Pete at June 10, 2009 12:20 PM