Internationally recognised art and literary critic, writer and cultural producer. Published in ELLE, Glamour, Esquire and Cosmopolitan; member of the Union of Writers.
Endless Column by Hank Willis Thomas, previously exhibited in Regent’s Park, London. (Creative Commons)
While wandering through Regent’s Park, where the Frieze Sculpture exhibit took place in 2017, you would have certainly paused. Towering into the air above the London skyline was a pile of 22 footballs stacked on top of each other. The work titled Endless Column (22 Totems) is an homage to the renowned Endless Column created by American contemporary artist, Hank Willis Thomas. It was not only a clever take on the original modernist masterpiece by Constantin Brâncuși but also an excellent choice to highlight a culture clash. In the park filled with centuries’ worth of manicured English aristocratic history, there was installed the perfect symbol of global working-class passion. People just couldn’t help pointing at it and laughing out loud.
The divide typically starts in school when you are either drawing sketches of a bird in the margins of a notebook or playing football in a muddy puddle. Throughout the years, London cultural institutions have been reflecting that playground separation. On the one side stood art enthusiasts visiting the silent and revered galleries of Tate Britain, whereas on the other were sports fans cheering for their teams in concrete bowls of Wembley Stadium and Stamford Bridge.
However, in 2026, these two separate paths will inevitably meet. In the capital of the United Kingdom, something quietly revolutionary is taking place – the dismantling of the old-fashioned separation between athleticism and artistic expression.
It is not occurring in Mayfair or South Kensington. Rather, the phenomenon in question can be observed in North London, next to an imposing stadium that hosts up to 62,000 spectators at once.
The OOF Gallery, located in the Warmington House right next to the stadium hosting the football matches, represents a new era of art galleries. Managed by the editors of OOF Magazine, this outstanding gallery focuses on showcasing the interconnection between contemporary football and art. What is truly brilliant about this space is the way it brings in the weekend crowds who do not even think of entering any art spaces into a carefully designed setting of paintings, sculptures, and videos devoted to their favorite game.
But this isn’t just about creating glorified portraits of renowned strikers. This is about using the terminology of sport to address wider socio-political concerns. After all, football is an analogy of society, representing various elements of tribalism, capitalism, race, and identity. The OOF Gallery uses this analogy to demonstrate how the passion of the terraces can coexist with the intelligence of the gallery.
This isn’t even restricted to North London. The Design Museum recently hosted a groundbreaking exhibition called “Football: Designing the Beautiful Game”, examining in meticulous detail the role of design engineering from the aerodynamics of the ball to the stadium architecture in bringing this sport to the peak of its excellence. It was a demonstration of the way in which the sporting equipment could be treated with the same level of respect as any mid-century modern furniture.
This trend is part of a wider and global phenomenon. On the other side of the Atlantic, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) have already hosted “Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture”. These multi-layered exhibitions show the influence of sports on contemporary art and culture and feature some prominent UK-based artists like Alvaro Barrington.
However, there is a certain historical dimension to London that makes it unique. Tate Modern and Tate Britain have been gradually acknowledging the supremacy of culture in the 1990s – a decade marked by the convergence of British football, the Britpop movement, and the phenomenon of the Young British Artists (YBAs). Tate Modern’s upcoming exhibition “Exploring the raucous and rebellious decade that was the 90s” will, no doubt, address the topic of how the culture of the terraces shaped contemporary art.
But why is this all happening now? Because the modern sports player has become more than just an athlete. He is a brand, a celebrity, a fashion icon, and even a politician. Sports players function within a highly polished visual environment.
At the same time, the art scene needs to find a way to reach out to its viewers. By embracing the visual culture of the sporting community, museums can break free from the exclusivity that is often associated with contemporary art. The fact that you put a Maurizio Cattelan 22-person foosball table in a museum gallery, and then fill the skies of Regent’s Park with piles of footballs sends an important message to those who come to view the installations.
The era of schoolyard dichotomy is coming to an end. Finally, the artists and the athletes have managed to come together, and London turns out to be the perfect arena for such a remarkable cultural fusion.
