Mitchell, I, Jackson, C and Spencer, J (2014) I Don't Love Soccer Because Soccer Has Never Loved Me. 25th June 2014, Bold Street Coffee, Bold Street, Liverpool L1 4HF. [Show/Exhibition]

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Abstract

I Don’t Love Soccer Because Soccer Has Never Loved Me Abstract I Don’t Love Soccer Because Soccer Has Never Loved Me is a collection of artworks produced in response to the essay The World Cup and Its Pomps written in 1978 by the famous Italian semiotician, intellectual and writer, Umberto Eco. Published in his 1986 collection of essays Travels in Hyper-Reality, Eco links football “with the absence of purpose and the vanity of all things” questioning the corrosive banality of its punditry, its inherent prejudice and exclusivity and its (a)political morality. The essay concludes with Eco asking rhetorically “Is the armed struggle possible on World Cup Sunday…Is revolution possible on a football Sunday?” Unlike many other creative projects that sprung up before and during the 2014 tournament the artworks featured in I Don’t Love Soccer Because Soccer Has Never Loved Me are not celebrations of the World Cup. Instead they take a critical look at the global event. Whilst the world was transfixed by all things Brazilian and the media saturated with World Cup related stories, greatest of TV compilations and commercial spin-offs, the graphic designers and illustrators featured in I Don’t Love Soccer Because Soccer Has Never Loved Me took inspiration from Eco’s semiotic critical theory to examine the beautiful game. I Don’t Love Soccer Because Soccer Has Never Loved Me was first exhibited in Liverpool in June 2014. The opening of the exhibition coinciding with England’s predictable exit from the competition. As fellow illustrator Christoph Niamann predicted in his web essay for the New York Times, “On July 13, only 3.125 percent of all fans and players will be able to remember the tournament happily for the rest of their lives”.

Item Type:	Show/Exhibition
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR N Fine Arts > NC Drawing Design Illustration
Divisions:	Screen School
Date Deposited:	19 Mar 2015 15:41
Last Modified:	13 Apr 2022 15:13
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/712

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