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REVIEW: CR Museum of Art double header a hit

By Judith Winter

The strain of muscles, crack of a bat, roar of a crowd, and the smell of popcorn, chlorine, sweat and horses seem to fill the galleries of the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

Sports of all sorts—I counted at least 30—are represented in this double header: “The ESPY Collection” of photographs by Rick Chapman of San Francisco and “All-Stars: American Sporting Prints from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams.”

Visitors can vicariously experience the evolution of sports, art styles and printmaking spanning roughly the last 150 years: from leisure activities like croquet to the big business of multi-millionaire professional athletes, from intimately sized sport venues to gigantic stadiums, and of course sportswear. Art styles include realism, cubism, surrealism and abstraction. Virtually all methods of printmaking are represented.

Examples of the 73 prints that make up the “All Stars” exhibit include the contorted necks, shoulders, mouths and legs of Olympic runners gruelingly exerting themselves, a swimmer’s splashes depicted as lace-like patterns, and the multiple perspectives of a bronc rider in action.

Artist John Anthony Baldessari makes an unusual visual connection with a deep water diver and a juggler, and Robert Rauschenberg seems to address our obsession with sports.

Reminiscent of Jane Fonda exercise classes, a group of women works out in highly decorative black-and-white leotards and leg warmers; a couple of fishermen hilariously catch each other’s hooks; and a boxing arena starkly contrasts with fans wearing evening gowns, top hats and tails.

It’s refreshing to see the names of many printmakers I never heard of—reminding us there are good artists who go unrecognized. One exception is Andy Warhol’s version of a very young Muhammad Ali, who also appears in “The ESPY Collection.”

“The ESPY Collection” is a series of 40 square-format, black-and-white portraits of some recipients of the ESPY Awards (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards, related to the sports cable television network ESPN).
Each photo includes the athlete’s signature but this collection glaringly omits any mention of each individual’s sport to aid the non-sports aficionado.

Hanging salon style—several rows high—in one gallery gives an intimate feel to these ESPY athletes who are often seen as pedestal perching gods and goddesses. In this venue, we see most of them out of uniform and out of their sports context.

Jeff Gordon looks so small. Brett Favre’s hands look so big—and calloused. The muscles in Marion Jones’ arms seem extraordinarily long. Michael Phelps looks quite comfortable in his bare skin compared to Lance Armstrong who seems unusually vulnerable without his shirt.

Photographer Chapman is no Annie Leibovitz, but his image of an airborne Shaun White is outstanding. Many of these photos could have been taken by anyone –but not everyone has access. And maybe the snapshot-look some of them have is what makes the athletes seem approachable.

This double header runs through August 31. For museum hours and admission information visit the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art web site.