Football (and art) are coming home
INTERVIEW: Caterina Loriggio, Arts and Heritage Lead for the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022
Hello
I’m back with another interview edition of the newsletter (not to mention my curated list of what to watch, see and do, and my barometer of trends from museum land).
This newsletter aims to bring you a really broad range of juicy info from the art world, so when I heard there was going to be an extensive cultural programme accompanying next month’s UEFA Women's EURO 2022, I knew I had to interview the person in charge of it all. Read on to find out more about this exciting festival which will be elevating story of the women’s game this summer, alongside all the latest action on the pitch.
And as ever, if you enjoy this edition of the newsletter, do PLEASE forward it on to a friend and tell them to sign up!
Till next time
Maxwell
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barometer
What’s heating up and cooling down in the world of museums, art and galleries this week:
heating up
The art fair is well and truly back IRL! The Venice Biennale kicked off in April, hosted in-person for the first time since the pandemic. Last week saw Art Basel return to Switzerland - and to booming sales. And this week sees TEFAF Maastricht open its doors, followed closely by Masterpiece London. Can we now ditch all the zooms please?
cooling down
Not much summer lovin’ for the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition from the some of the art critics. The Guardian was scathing of this year’s offering, calling it “catastrophic” and that the “insincerity hits you like a stench of decaying rubbish.” The Telegraph weren’t impressed either, saying there’s a “general tone of smug merriment” full of “hackneyed eco-art.” Ouch.
curated
maxwell museums’ curated list of what’s new to see, do, watch, read and more - from the UK to across the globe.
NEW EXHIBITION
Sin
Perth Museum & Art Galley, until 25 September
The National Gallery’s 2020 exhibition on transgression in visual art makes its only stop in Scotland on a UK-wide tour. Visitors can get up close and personal with works by Rembrandt, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Jan Steen, Jan Gossaert, Tracey Emin, Ron Mueck, and more, plus treasures from Perth Museum & Art Gallery’s own collections.
NEW SERIES
The Art Mysteries
Sky Arts, Tues, 19:00 & 19:30. Stream on NOW
The Sunday Times art critic Waldemar Januszczak takes his series on art’s biggest enigmas to Sky Arts from the BBC. It kicked off with a double bill, with the first looking at why the Mona Lisa became a global celebrity despite being neglected for centuries. A spoiler: getting stolen helped. Catch up on Sky’s NOW.
NEW EXHIBITION
Sculpture in the City
City of London, from today
It’s that time of year again, where London’s Square Mile becomes a sculpture park that uses the urban realm as a rotating gallery space. In this 11th edition, a new collection of eleven artworks by internationally renowned and emerging artists will be showcased throughout the City’s public spaces. Alongside will be the first the inaugural Aldgate Square Commissions to support emerging artists.
interview
If you think the winter World Cup in Qatar means there’s no football fever this summer, then you’re wrong. So very wrong. On 6 July the UEFA Women's EURO 2022 kicks off - and they’re being hosted in England! (Come on the Lionesses!). But for the first time, the action isn’t just on the pitch this year. New for 2022 is a cultural programme running alongside. Featuring a line-up of arts, heritage projects and musical events, the programme will celebrate and explore the rich history of the women’s game. It takes place nationwide across the nine Host Cities - which FYI are Brighton & Hove, London (Brent and Hounslow), Manchester, Milton Keynes, Rotherham, Sheffield, Southampton, Trafford and Wigan & Leigh - and it begins this month. It’s also the first time that the Football Association (FA) has managed such a programme alongside a major tournament.
To get the lowdown on what to expect - from new commissions by women artists to exhibitions in every single Host City - I spoke to Caterina Loriggio, Arts and Heritage Lead for the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022. And I began by asking: why art and football?
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Why is there an arts programme running alongside Euro 2022?
The programme aims to promote community engagement, cultural leadership, health and well-being, civic pride and to support local economies. Our Host City partners were very keen to amplify the opportunity the tournament provided to engage and inspire their residents and visitors, and also to support post-pandemic recovery. An Ernst & Young’s pre-event study predicted that the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 will deliver £53m in economic activity to the Host Cities, supported by 90,000 international attendees throughout the tournament. Predictions also show that the tournament will promote positive perceptions of the Host Cities, England and the UK, as the tournament ignites engagement with an expected international TV audience of over 250 million across over 100 countries. There’s a direct investment in culture through the Lottery funding (£1.3m) which, with Host City and partner match, makes for an overall budget of circa £3m. This has enabled the (freelance) employment of 60 female artists and 20 producer, curator and community engagement roles. Add into this the musician days at the RPO, and the contracted support roles such as fabrication, installation, photography, film making, design, and event management - the programme has provided much needed work for a sector that was still sore post-pandemic. The success and learnings from this programme will help future UK bids for major sporting events hosted across different cities.
This is the first time the FA is directly running a programme of this kind - why?
The FA’s priority is clearly football. They engage daily with 14 million elite and grassroots participants; with professional, community and education providers; and with millions of fans who support club and international teams. Football touches a diverse audience, and this programme is seen as an opportunity to draw new audiences to both football and to arts and heritage, leaving a positive legacy for all sectors. A key priority for the FA, particularly for this championship, is to establish female role models for both girls and boys. When Host City partners requested a cultural programme to support the tournament the Association saw that it could be a great opportunity to further fulfil this objective. It was also clear that partnering with cultural institutions in Hosts Cities was a great way to promote the UK’s cultural sector and further promote civic pride. The history of women’s football is a hidden one. It is important to the football community that the 140- year-old women’s game, the fans, allies, and of course the players are recognised. The UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 provides the ideal time to do that.
Tell me about some of the new commissions by female artists?
We have directly commissioned four projects thanks to Lottery players through Arts Council England funding. On top of this, many Host Cities have also commissioned work or supported local artists to support the tournament. The Supercompensation Cycle by visual artist Emma Smith is a large-scale, immersive and participatory artwork that invites the public to warm-up for each football match by replicating the movements of live performers. Holographic motion portraits of our Host City communities are to be projected on to 11 specially designed structures which will bring city squares and spaces to life. The Beautiful Game is a new anthem to celebrate the tournament by composer Shirley Thompson OBE, commissioned from and recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra along 100 community representatives from the Host Cities. Additionally, female composers early in their careers have created, with communities, anthems for every Host City. You can download the anthems from the RPO website and come and join in at the Fan Parties and match days. Idle women, a collective of women artists, is coming together on a collaborative project Stadium for the Future (If I can’t dance I don’t want to be part of your revolution). This is a conceptual rather than concrete stadium engineered and built by and for women. It will be danced into existence in raves in four Host Cities and a sound piece will be created that will launch on 31 July and stay online until the new stadium is finally realised. Deborah Goatley-Birch has created a library resource which will further enable communities to celebrate the tournament. It is free and available for download nationally in collaboration with Libraries Connected. It’s also a great resource for schools or for families wanting a way to join in at home.
And what about some of the exhibitions that will be hosted alongside the tournament- which are you most excited about?
I have been lucky enough to go to the opening of three of our exhibitions already – Goal Power, Women’s Football 1894 – 2022 in Brighton; Women of the Match: Portraits of Brent’s Female Football Stars in Wembley; and Grassroots to Glory (our story so far), in Rotherham. They are currently my favourites. As with our other partners they have all collected stories, photos and objects that have all been hidden away for decades – it’s wonderful to see them come to life and to see people’s response to them. The heritage programme has all been exciting; it’s a rich and surprisingly moving story. It’s been a real honour and in fact privilege to meet and work with the former players – so many inspiring women, some of which played football as far back as the 1950s. You wait till you see their memory films – I have been crying and laughing at the same time watching the first edits!
Do you think there’s difficulty in getting attention on the arts programme when (hopefully) the sport itself will be so dramatic?
No, the arts and heritage programme is intertwined with the sport itself. Prior to writing funding applications, I led, with the support of the Football Supporters’ Association, four online fan consultations to ensure the programme spoke to the wants of women’s football fans. We also commissioned the organisation ’64 Million Artists’ to lead half-term virtual workshops for young people aged 12 – 18 in Host Cities (many of whom played football). The fans and young people’s feedback was shared with artists and curators and is clearly reflected in the programme. What have been some of the challenges on putting this programme together? (Candour or specific examples v appreciated) The real challenge has been the tight turnaround. This is the kind of programme that you would have liked at least two solid years to plan and run, but with the Covid-19 pandemic taking out most of 2020, and with the November 2021 lockdown kicking-in just as funding was being confirmed and we were about to start our R&D, we have had to deliver everything in an extremely condensed timetable. That has put pressure on the artists and curators, but everyone has risen to the challenge, and for that we’re truly grateful. There’s a lot of goodwill and so much commitment to telling this story that it has carried us through. More time would have also better enabled us to also build deeper relationships with our communities, but with around 3,500 participants engaged to date, and with very positive and encouraging feedback coming in, we haven’t done too badly at all - and there are plenty of opportunities to take part still to come. We are all adjusting post-pandemic and, like many organisations and businesses, many of the team are still losing workdays to sickness, but despite that we have a very ambitious and authentic programme which we can all be proud of.
Finally - who will you be cheering on to victory?
Ah this is a hard one for me… I have family ties to both England and Italy; I just tend to cheer on whichever one of them is doing better at the time. I don’t mind who wins. The victory for me will be more people knowing this incredible story and celebrating these fantastic women, whose resilience has afforded us the opportunity to take for granted the hosting of this year’s biggest women’s sporting event (which by the way, with an expected capacity crowd of more than 80,000 at Wembley, would be a record attendance for any EURO Final ever – men or women’s.)
The arts and heritage programme for the UEFA Women's EURO 2022 tournament is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England. Find out more.
and finally
Looking for some weekend art inspo? Here are 75 great artworks to see across the UK, from the Guardian. I love numbers 50, 59 and 72!