Football’s transnationality is celebrated in an exhibition of 50 photographs taken by many of the most legendary image-makers in the history of photography. Umeå IK stars Marta da Silva and Elaine Moura, as well as German world star Doris Fitschen, will be in Umeå on August 21 when the exhibition opens at Bildmuseet.
The Weltsprache Fußball [Planet Football] exhibition tells footballing stories from around the world, with images taken by photographers associated with the renowned Magnum Photos agency, founded by Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Photographs of girls and boys, professionals and amateurs, young and old playing football in the street, on the beach, in the schoolyard, in the shadow of war, amid poverty and in everyday life, with dreams great and small.
Magical moments captured by well-known photographers such as Abbas, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Martine Franck, Susan Meiselas, Josef Koudelka, Herbert List and Ferdinando Scianna show how sport transcends national and cultural borders. In one photograph by John Vink, Diego Maradona stands victorious during the 1986 World Cup at Mexico’s Aztec Stadium, while in another Marilyn Monroe kicks a ball at the Yankee Stadium in the USA. Swimming in the Ganges or skipping along the beaches of Martinique – the presence of a football inspires intense, colourful observations of human interaction.
Produced for the forthcoming 2006 World Cup in Germany, the exhibition aims to show the significance of sport in relation to identity, religion and leisure. The project is also part of the FIFA World Cup arts and culture programme.
With Umeå as a base for the huge success of Swedish women’s football internationally, the location for the Swedish premiere is a natural choice. After being displayed at Bildmuseet, the exhibition will be shown at Kulturhuset in Stockholm. Since its world premiere in February 2004, the exhibition has been staged in Denmark, Greece, India, China, Spain and the USA.
Weltsprache Fußball has been produced by the Goethe-Institut in cooperation with Magnum Photos, and with support from the Nationale DFB Kulturstiftung as a contribution to the official framework programme of the FIFA World Cup.
