UConn title teams have a ball with art exhibit
Storrs - The University of Connecticut already bills itself as the basketball capital of the world, with 13 NCAA championships including both the men's and women's titles in 2014.
Now the school is laying claim to being, at least temporarily, the world capital of basketball art.
UConn's William Benton Museum of Art is opening an exhibit this month titled "In the Paint: Basketball in Contemporary Art." It will feature 22 basketball-related paintings, photographs and sculptures.
The pieces range from humorous, such as a depiction of Michael Jordan dunking the moon, to more thought-provoking, including a photograph of Afghanistan's women's national basketball team and a print by Hank Willis Thomas of two African-American players jumping toward a noose.
"I was surprised at how much basketball-related art actually is out there," said Jean Nihoul, the exhibit's curator. "Much of it deals with race."
Two of the paintings were actually created by members of UConn's national championship basketball teams.
The men's and women's teams gathered on separate days during the offseason outside the museum, where they were given basketballs, several large canvases and a lot of paint and told to be creative.
"We dribbled the balls and got a little carried away with it," said Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, a forward on the women's team. "It was a lot of color. Some was on the canvas, some was not on the canvas. Some was on us. But it's kind of cool being able to leave something else at UConn other than just basketball."
Nihoul said he was impressed by how seriously the teams took the artistic process, and was amazed by the final results of abstract expressionism.
"The girls' has this really Jackson Pollock-esque kind of aesthetic to it," he said. "And the men, well you can tell they had a great time making it."
Nihoul says the idea was spawned in the fall of 2013 at a retreat for members of UConn's Fine Arts school, where the featured speaker was UConn women's coach Geno Auriemma. The coach and museum director Nancy Stula began brainstorming, and this is what they came up with, said Nihoul.
Auriemma is in discussions to lend some of his personal basketball memorabilia to supplement the art, and a championship trophy or two may make an appearance at the museum, Nihoul said.
The athletic department is helping to promote the exhibit, which runs from Jan. 23 to March 29, by sending notices about it to season ticket holders. There also will be advertisements inside Gampel Pavilion.
The opening will occur just before a men's basketball game. Former men's coach and Hall of Famer Jim Calhoun will be cutting the ribbon.
UConn forward Breanna Stewart, the national women's player of the year, said she's excited to have her work shown somewhere other than her parents' refrigerator.
"I've never been exhibited as an artist, so now I can put that on my resume," she joked. "But I think it's going to be really cool to see."
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