” Everybody get up, it’s time to slam now … Welcome to the Space Jam.”
Most of us are still pissed about The Academy snubbing Michael Jordan‘s at the 1997 Academy Awards. Like c’mon, Geoffrey Rush (who won Best Actor) was great in Shine, and it was an inspirational movie and all, but Space Jam? SPACE JAM? Nothing was more inspiring than Michael Jordan stretching his arm the full length of the court for that dunk, narrowly defeating the “Monstars”, and thereby avoiding permanent servitude on Moron Mountain. What a victory.
Well, for all of us “Space Jammers” out there who are still bent out of shape about the injustice that was the 1997 Academy Awards, artist Devin Strother‘s new Space Jam-inspired exhibition at Marlborough Chelsea will at least show the film’s influence hasn’t dissipated. The multi-faceted show will artistically incorporate basketball cards, outer space, Michael Jordan and more, while completely dissecting the words “Space Jam” as well as important elements of the 1996 film. “The title correlates to making work for a show; it’s kind of meta, about space but also about action. Space like outer space but also a gallery space. It was all coming together. And I had made some Michael Jordan paintings when I was living in Europe, so I decided to go on a little Michael Jordan riff,” he told the Huffington Post. “It was initially a play on words,” he explained. “It was that issue of having to deal with this huge space and what to jam into it.”
Marlborough Chelsea itself serves as part of the exhibition, as the gallery has been redesigned into a basketball court, fully encompassing visitors into the West Covina-native’s creative mind, featuring a warm-up area, locker room and a court.
Catch ‘Space Jam’ the art exhibition at Marlborough Chelsea, New York, going on from now until February 14, 2015.
You can find Khari Clarke at your local pizza shop and on Twitter (@KINGCLARKEIII).
