After Atalanta

WaPo has a piece on a new art exhibit currently showing in LA (bummer for me). It's called Hard Targets: Masculinity and Sports, and it sounds fascinating. It's in LA until the start of 2009. Can't find where it may be headed next but I am hoping it is somewhere on the east coast. The article details the various installments. I, personally, am quite intrigued by this one: Feminism and race intersect in Mark Bradford's basketball video "Practice." Bradford, who is tall and black, enacts an absurdist ballet about race-based assumptions -- you should play basketball -- by shooting hoops in a dress made with a massive, awkward bustle (conspicuously fashioned in L.A. Lakers -like gold and purple). Struggling to find his shot while literally wrestling his outfit, Bradford speaks to the history of constricting women's wear and, metaphorically, women's roles, even as he speaks to similar constraints of race. If you're interested in reading more about the i...

A new and very interesting photography exhibit opened in Paris last week. " Hijab in Sports " is being organized by photographer Maryam Amouzgar who has been documenting Muslim women in sports for over a decade. The exhibit is in Paris but sponsored by Iran's House of Culture and will end later this week. So if you happen to be in Paris, check it out. Hopefully it will be well received and perhaps shown in other cities.