Soccer 1999

Curator: Nyoman Masriadi's painting, "Soccer," created in 1999 using acrylic paint, presents a dynamic tableau. It immediately strikes me as chaotic, yet strangely grounded, almost monumental in its simplicity. Editor: Grounded is interesting because that's the overwhelming sensation I get, too. The monumental black and white figure of the giant soccer player dominates the scene. What symbols do you observe at play here? Curator: For me, the repetition of the silhouetted figures and the way they’re flattened suggests a commentary on mass culture and how individuals get subsumed within the collective, within this culture. What processes are being utilized here and do they point to his making? Editor: Look closely, the acrylic is applied quite thickly in places and allowed to drip, creating a kind of spontaneous street-art feel. This ties into a wider investigation around what constitutes art making and how it exists inside the commercialization and art making industries. The simplified forms of the smaller figures appear almost as stencils or print, further referencing popular imagery and accessible means of production. They’re symbols that anyone can readily identify. And there's something wonderfully ironic in using this approach to examine celebrity, isn’t there? Curator: It’s fascinating how those street-art allusions allow us to consider how symbols of power, like this footballer, permeate cultural consciousness. The monumental figure acts almost as a kind of authoritarian specter watching over them, reinforcing the hierarchical dynamics that operate in society, or within sports in general. Are you reading into my social commentary or is this an aspect of its visual story you feel is prominent too? Editor: Absolutely. By juxtaposing the anonymity of the shadowed figures with this monolithic form, Masriadi creates an unsettling visual power dynamic, I think, one about the weight that celebrity and mass spectacle has within contemporary life. It uses something that can be very appealing - the love of a sport - to highlight concerns that allude to greater cultural concepts such as how capitalism works to give worth and status. Curator: So, we begin by thinking of “Soccer” as something joyous, but really its success hinges on exploring social structures that we have to question to break. Editor: Yes, a fascinating investigation into power and representation, achieved through bold design choices and a sophisticated commentary on symbols and labor.