WYNWOOD — The world's best soccer players will travel from Miami to Berlin to compete on Sunday, but a gallery in this trendy and popular Miami neighborhood is showcasing the sport as art.
Wynwood Art Experience is hosting an exhibition running through Aug. 31 that includes a bronze sculpture of Brazilian legend Pele's foot and intricately painted soccer balls honoring past World Cup winning national teams. The Football Arte exhibit features works by Italian sculptor Dante Morte, Paraguayan painter Lili Cantero, Spain's Rene Makela and Canada's Carling Jackson.
Mortet said his piece, a sculpture of the Brazilian legend known as the King of Soccer, known in many parts of the world as football, shows that the sport is the “world game” and that “football is a form of art.” Mortet was a professional football player and said he still misses the camaraderie on the field, in the locker room and the electric atmosphere in the stadium stands.
Today, Mortet works in the same workshop his family started 150 years ago, honing his craft the old-fashioned way, with his eyes and his hands, without the aid of computers or 3D printers.
Moltetto, a fifth-generation sculptor who lives in Rome, said he was inspired by the longevity of the bronze statues that dot the Italian capital, which he points out speak of antiquity and draw attention to history, both in the subject matter they depict but also the techniques used to create them.
He draws parallels with modern-day football heroes.
“Who is a modern gladiator? A modern gladiator is a soccer player,” he said. “And that's where the idea for the Modern Gladiator Foot Sculpture came from – turning a player's foot into an immortal bronze sculpture.”
Maybe a video of a Pele or Diego Maradona or Lionel Messi scoring a goal may or may not exist in 1,000 years, but history has proven that works of art, whether in the hands of an observer or on public display, are valuable, he said.
“For a soccer player, taking this idea and turning it into a sculpture and giving it a soul, knowing that it could be something that will tell a story forever,” Mortet said. “That's what attracted me to this form of art and expression.”
Cantero has painted a collection of soccer balls to honour past World Cup winners, including Argentina, Spain, Germany and England.
Cantero said he wanted to paint a ball that would honour his native Paraguay's team, but was drawn to the sport that unites people of all cultures and backgrounds, adding that football is a universal language that transcends barriers and creates an emotional connection between players and fans.
“As an artist, I am fascinated by how soccer evokes such intense emotions and how these moments can be captured and expressed through art,” she said. “Moreover, the aesthetics of the sport, with its dynamic movements and rich history, serve as a never-ending source of inspiration for my work.”
Cantero said she chose the ball as her canvas because it represents the focal point of the action on the field. Painting the soccer ball allowed her to “transform an everyday object into a unique work of art” that celebrates the sport in its most basic form, she said. And it was a challenge, she added.
“The spherical shape of the ball presented an interesting artistic challenge, forcing me to consider composition and design in three dimensions, which added an extra layer of creativity and complexity to the project,” she said.
Aaron Davidson, who organized the exhibit at the gallery, said the idea to incorporate soccer as a culture came about after a former girlfriend told him that soccer wasn't a culture, and he also wanted to show “real art” rather than memorabilia.
He said he wanted to shine a spotlight on intergenerational art that is valued and embraced like a family heirloom, not simply based on speculative wealth or price potential, but because it means something emotionally and sentimentally.
“There's a desire to get back to something real, sentimental, and to enjoy art for art's sake,” he said. “Generation art is important art because it has a personal meaning to the buyer, the collector. The vision for this gallery is to be a sports art gallery.
Antonio Fins is politics and business editor for the Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. Contact him at afins@pbpost.com. Support our journalism. Subscribe now..
