“What is Stiles saying now: Whistle down the Wind”, Claytor, 1990
I kind of get it when people talk about this, whilst always feeling a little uncomfortable with the idea. Art/Sport; Sport/Art? It is genuinely meant as high praise, but I suppose I don’t really want football to be an ‘Art’ as such because the later means something else to me.
Similarly with martial arts. It is perhaps a little bit closer from a personal, reflective and meditative point of view. -Still no ‘art object’ though.
Art whilst retaining a valuable status, is also seen as notoriously pretentious as a matter of course by many. I don’t go along with this for the most part (because I genuinely tend to enjoy most art I come across). Artistic achievement is consistantly undervalued and misunderstood even when on display in its own arena . This does not mean however that I want to migrate it into the sports stadium and designate any aspect of football as ‘art’ though.
I want to admire a Messi goal differently. It is unnecessary (and pretentious) to describe it as art. Any number of other superlatives suffice in the heat of the moment but lets avoid ‘art’ (and ‘poetry’ while we are at it) ‘cos in many ways Lionel is better than and certainly different from that.