Human Games

Human Game. Winners and Losers is a reflection on sport and its central role in contemporary society. Today, sport is a nerve point: it is the meeting point of passion and desire, science and research and a metaphor of existence as summarized by the sub-title, Winners and Losers. The aim of Human Game is to find the crucial bond between sport, in the sense of a recreational pastime, and social, political and cultural life. The continuing spread of a vast sport mythology has changed habits, clothing styles and has prompted real revolutions. Human Game examines the metamorphosis of sport as it changed from play, competition, discipline and body care to universal spectacle that encompasses technology, fashion, art, business, medicine and communications.

Human Game is a book and an exhibition. Both will focus on five different themes that can become the device for organizing sport and its image together with art, communications, design, fashion and pop culture, as well as all the social and political contrasts related to it: LIMIT, GAMES, MUTATION, TRADITION, FREEDOM.

LIMIT_ speed, records, challenger, second skin, lycra GAMES_ motion, action, contrast, team spirit, jersey MUTATION_ prostheses, protection, muscles, athletic supporters, doping TRADITION_ white, cotton, rule, WASP, tennis FREEDOM_ antagonism, freestyle, no rules, philosophy, fisheye
These themes reflect the complexities of contemporary sports, and how sport champions influence other people’s lifestyles and fashions with their behavior. Art uses sport as a symbol and metaphor of life; fashion designers’ creations tell how fashion has been marked by sport and how sport has been affected by the lure of fashion. The only real innovations in fashion during the past decade have been in sports clothing: sports products have become signature items and influence fashion from streetstyle to haute couture. Sports are media phenomena for all intents and purposes and sports stars are true super-stars whose internationally recognized faces impact every kind of product. Lifestyles are truly becoming sport-ized.
The exhibition_ Human Game. Winners and Losers is staged along a path of more than 100 meters, in a spiral of gilded metal meshwork (diameter 11 meters) interrupted by five containers – one for each theme – made of materials used in sports (mats, ice, turf, asphalt, water). And, along this path are works of art, clothes, images, equipment and lots of other things that tell the story of the human game.
The book_ an almanac filled with images, texts and curiosities (about 500 pages with 600 illustrations). A co-publication by Fondazione Pitti Discovery and Charta.
Human Game. Winners and Losers is produced by the Fondazione Pitti Discovery and curated by Francesco Bonami, Maria Luisa Frisa and Stefano Tonchi; sport-fashion consultant Robert Rabensteiner, the book image and exhibition design are by Hola, a Los Angeles-based architecture studio, coordinated by Jeffrey Inaba
The exhibition will open in Florence on 21 June 2006, on the occasion of Pitti Immagine Uomo 70 and negotiations are currently in progress to take it to other institutions in Europe and America.

Artistes : Vito Acconci, Rey Akdogan, Ulf Aminde, Carlos Amorales, Maria Antelman, Gustavo Artigas, Felipe Barbosa, Matthew Barney, Elisabetta Benassi, Paul Floyd Blake, Michael Blum, Andrea Bowers, Slater Bradley, Olaf Breuning, Roderick Buchanan, Mircea Cantor, Josef Dabernig, Stephen Dean, Sylvie Fleury, Kendell Geers, Fabrice Gygi, Julie Henry, Brian Jungen, Omer Ali Kazma, Jeff Koons, Annika Larsson, Sharon Lockhart, Eva e Franco Mattes (0100101110101101.org), Olaf Metzel, Tracey Moffatt, Gianni Motti, Bruce Nauman, Melik Ohanian, Gabriel Orozco, Cecilia Parsberg, Paul Pfeiffer, Shannon Plumb, Robin Rhode, Collier Schorr, Roman Signer, Florian Slotawa, Fiona Tan, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Grazia Toderi, Jaan Toomik, Patrick Tuttofuoco, Uri Tzaig, Mark Wallinger

Fondazione Pitti Discovery press office
Francesca Tacconi
tel. + 39 055 3693251/211

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