In July 1981, and again in February 1989, we proposed to friends of ours and other artists and to everyone it may concern-through texts in the magazines “Sin kai Plin” and “To Bitoni”, to found a football team.
We made this proposal because of the similarities and differences between art and sports. Most of the people follow passively both, art and sports, because art is for geniuses and sports are for champions. Of course, sports has a mass effect, art hasn’t. That’s why politicians or businessmen usually show a strong interest in sports, much more than art. Today in Greece there are 16 daily newspapers on sports, but only one monthly on art.
Our football team would be a gesture of conjunction between everyday life and art; bureaucracy, every typical process, such as the statutes or the participation in the championship, constitute an ingredient of the artistic creation. Our football team wouldn’t be a kind of shell or cover for something else. It would be a means for expression and also a channel for the projection of the artistic creation. In our times, when everything labeled as art is welcome, our football team would give one the opportunity to perform in a manner of art but out of the context of art, not even using the name “art.” Our football team would be a game and a convention, based on the rules of the game; that means that aesthetic discontinuity, cuts, sudden changes of style and rhythm would be acceptable. The strange clothes of the players, the unevenness of their age -elderly and kids playing together, the humorous use of the rules -taking objection to the referee that he helped our team, the shift of the public attention from the playground in the tiers, presenting installations, performances, concerts during the match, are some examples of what we could do. What would be interesting in the character of our football team are the contradictions of its activities, because of the different background of its members.
Thanasis Chondros and Alexandra Katsiani Konst Melenikou 34 54635 Thessaloniki, Greece
In July 1981, and again in February 1989, we proposed to friends of ours and other artists and to everyone it may concern-through texts in the magazines “Sin kai Plin” and “To Bitoni”, to found a football team.
We made this proposal because of the similarities and differences between art and sports. Most of the people follow passively both, art and sports, because art is for geniuses and sports are for champions. Of course, sports has a mass effect, art hasn’t. That’s why politicians or businessmen usually show a strong interest in sports, much more than art. Today in Greece there are 16 daily newspapers on sports, but only one monthly on art.
Our football team would be a gesture of conjunction between everyday life and art; bureaucracy, every typical process, such as the statutes or the participation in the championship, constitute an ingredient of the artistic creation. Our football team wouldn’t be a kind of shell or cover for something else. It would be a means for expression and also a channel for the projection of the artistic creation. In our times, when everything labeled as art is welcome, our football team would give one the opportunity to perform in a manner of art but out of the context of art, not even using the name “art.” Our football team would be a game and a convention, based on the rules of the game; that means that aesthetic discontinuity, cuts, sudden changes of style and rhythm would be acceptable. The strange clothes of the players, the unevenness of their age -elderly and kids playing together, the humorous use of the rules -taking objection to the referee that he helped our team, the shift of the public attention from the playground in the tiers, presenting installations, performances, concerts during the match, are some examples of what we could do. What would be interesting in the character of our football team are the contradictions of its activities, because of the different background of its members.
Thanasis Chondros and Alexandra Katsiani Konst Melenikou 34 54635 Thessaloniki, Greece