Sports writers on art, art critics on sport

The Guardian’s arts critics and sports writers swapped roles. Yesterday the critics got a taste of the sporting life, while today the sports team is set loose on the contemporary arts world. (Via Art News Blog)

Jonathan Jones, visual art critic, on football
Hull City v Bristol City at Wembley, May 24
“Watching football is, in theory, a bit like looking at art. The view from my seat (which has its own little TV monitor) might be compared to looking down on a vast green abstract canvas laid flat, with dots oscillating about like some 1960s piece of kinetic art. But while I can find deep meaning in, say, an abstract by Jackson Pollock, the game of football has always been as indecipherable to me as some people profess to find modern art. I am a football philistine.” Read more.

Steve Bierley, tennis correspondent, on visual art Louise Bourgeois at the Pompidou Centre, Paris, May 31
“From the top of the Pompidou Centre, Roland Garros – the home of the French Open tennis championship, and my home for a fortnight every spring – was lost in the morning mist. Sport is essentially about youth, and about absolutes. Sport makes you feel elated or depressed. The works of Louise Bourgeois, 97 years old this December, make you feel unsettled, repelled. Roland Garros seemed a million miles away. Faced with a new sport, which is unusual these days, my first instinct is to ignore the detail. Observe and record; don’t get bogged down in too many facts or statistics. So I came to Bourgeois with no prior knowledge of her work, no inkling of the deeply disturbing web she was about to wind around me. Her huge spider, installed on the ground floor, should have been a hint.” Read more.