Some of the most compelling contemporary renderings of sport include the non-organized, non-traditional variety. We’re Up Next, a 2023 painted paper collage by Melvin Nesbitt Jr., depicts a pick-up basketball game in a public housing community like the one Nesbitt grew up in. The artist has said he seeks to capture the joy of Black childhood, and his scenes of kids playing, dancing, and throwing around a ball do just that. In slightly more adult scenarios, Puerto Rican artist Jean-Pierre Villafañe (who has a solo show at Charles Moffett, New York, through August 2) similarly finds joy in his ecstatic paintings of libertine figures. His 2023 painting Permanent Vacation depicts five beachgoers in various states of undress, tapping a beach ball, carrying a tray of cocktails, and otherwise posing with their long, toned legs extended. Villafañe’s work, whether set in an office, a dance hall, or the great outdoors, gets at a different kind of physical effort beyond the bright lights of an arena.
Bodies do not have to bear flesh to indicate movement. South African artist Sthenjwa Luthuli creates hand-carved wooden reliefs of lithe figures suspended in what he calls ‘unknown space.’ Those bodies are covered in all-over patterns, which Luthuli paints on top of his carved wood boards. The effect is mesmerizing. They feel very much alive and in motion, almost like gymnasts: leg muscles taut, feet arched, and arms stretched out in elegant yearning. These figures, almost classical in their sculpted physiques, remind us that even when coming from disparate parts of the world, human bodies are really not so different across time and space.
