Auxier Kline is pleased to present our 2023 summer exhibition, Good Sports.  This showcase brings together a collection of new artworks by eight artists that explore the intersection of sports and athleticism with contemporary art. 

Sports culture has permeated artistic expression for millennia. The ancient Greeks created depictions of Olympic athletes in sculptural form that came to define the ideal body to present day. Moreover, these images began the long history of artists harnessing the world of sports as a canvas for social commentary, creating the use of sports as metaphors for political movements, power dynamics, and the human condition at large.

North American artists throughout more contemporary art history, including the work of Thomas Eakins, George Bellows, Paul Cadmus, Elaine De Kooning, Fairfield Porter, and Andy Warhol, to name a few, have continued to use the aesthetics of sports to contemplate the profound connection between the sports and art worlds, recognizing how those realms intertwine to reflect the human experience.

The eight artists included in Good Sports continue this long tradition in their new work that explores the ways in which the unscripted theater and drama of athletic activity creates universal narratives, how the improvisation of the body in motion during these activities informs our contemporary beauty standards and views on sexuality; all the while raising thought-provoking questions about identity and social dynamics in our contemporary world.