Fever pitch strikes

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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World Cup fever is a volatile mixture of hope and cynicism, an unstable state in which even non-football obsessives succumb to the combined forces of peer pressure, consumerist enticements and pure old-fashioned partisanship; world football, after all, is all the glory and nationalist self-justification of war without any of the unpleasant stuff. We can take Shakespeare's advice ('The game's afoot: Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge cry "God for Harry! England and Saint George") but - attention, hooligans - unlike Henry V, we don't need to actually kill anyone to do so.

Magma has attempted to capture this weird elation with a correspondingly unusual exhibition of diverse football-related art from competing countries. There's graphic design, photography, installation, animation and adverts, with a particularly high concentrationof work from Japan. Another advantage football has over war is that being the host country is actually a plus. Japan is celebrating with work ranging from the amusing Spectacle football shirt, which plays on the two meanings of the word and the watching/being watched dichotomy that is what any public event is all about, to a banned pop promo that parodies the bloodlust of controversial Japanese film Battle Royale.

Not to be outdone (not this early, anyway), other countries sport their artists' best footie-related endeavours, including a vibrant animated film using everything from Japanese animation techniques to table football figurines from Britain's Run Wrake (pictured). The whole world knows it's not only a game.

Until June 7, Magma Clerkenwell, 117 to 119 Clerkenwell Road EC1, Mon to Sat 10am to 7pm, free.
Tel: 020 7242 9502
Tube: Farringdon

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