The Sports Show

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Through May 13

Beautiful things can happen when artists and jocks get together, said John Rash in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Though the worlds the two camps represent can at times “seem separated by a pop-cultural chasm,” this fascinating exhibition aims to show that sports is itself an expressive medium that rivals art in its power to move audiences. Look around the show and you’ll find all manner of great artists who found rich material in the sports world. “Those gritty pictures of boxer Rocky Graziano? Taken by director Stanley Kubrick.” Those Polaroids of hockey’s Wayne Gretzky and soccer’s Pelé? Both are Warhols. The show tells a number of stories well, including how sports has grown from private pastime to mass-media spectacle, and how that transformation gave sporting events new power to shape the larger culture. In one photograph, we see Jesse Owens on the medal stand at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, standing beside a German athlete who’s offering a Nazi salute. Next to that image, two 1968 U.S. track stars raise gloved fists in a salute to black power.

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But the show is far from “a greatest-hits compendium” of famous sports images, said Sean Gregory in Time. “Curator David Little took a more surprising approach, choosing photographs that offer more social commentary” than mere commemoration of landmark athletic triumphs. An 1899 photo of female students playing basketball in dresses, for instance, reminds us that women had a foothold in team sports generations before the battle for Title IX funding. Elsewhere, the show even “casts a skeptical eye on the emotional energy we spend on sports.” Is watching SportsCenter highlights while pondering the Cubs’ 2012 postseason hopes “really the best use of one’s time?” This show is smart enough to suggest it isn’t the worst use.