Opening reception: Saturday, January 6, 5-8pm

The artist and the athlete. Often portrayed in movies and television as opposites, the reality is that arts and athletics overlap (of course they have done so for centuries) and each has an important perspective on our society. Hand-Eye Coordination: Sports and Art is a survey of Midwest-connected artists from the Hairy Who to today, who incorporate sports, its themes, implications, and content into their artwork.

Sparked by a 2010 essay published on ArtSlant titled “Who Will Curate a Major Sports Exhibition?,” which suggested that an area of major public interest and significant artistic production–sports–was overdue for new exploration, Western Exhibitions owner Scott Speh reached out to the author Abraham Ritchie to carry out his own suggestion. With artists whose approaches range from celebratory to critical, Hand-Eye Coordination is suggested as the start of a wider conversation about these two celebrated areas of human society: the arts and athletics.

Hand-Eye Coordination: Sports and Art opens with a public reception on Saturday, January 6 from 5 to 8pm and will run through February 17. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm.