[ad_1]
LJ Rader tries to be online as much as possible during big sporting events, but he missed the first half of last Sunday’s NFL playoff game between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs due to dinner commitments. After leaving the restaurant, Rader checked his phone and saw an unusual request. The NFL had tagged him on X (formerly known as Twitter) and wanted him to provide one of his signature works.
“If I was still eating and missed this, I would have been very upset,” Rader said.
On social media, Mr. Rader is a wizard at Art But Make It Sports, where he uses his account. X And on Instagram, you can combine photos from the world of sports with paintings and other works of art that reflect it. These witty, irreverent, and often heart-wrenching accounts have a combined 365,000 followers.
Last Sunday, the NFL asked Rader for his thoughts on a scene destined for Internet immortality. Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman Jason Kelce leans out of the stadium’s plush box, shirtless and clutching a can of beer, screaming. It was to celebrate a touchdown his older brother Travis scored in Kansas City in subarctic weather.
Mr. Rader did his own mental arithmetic while searching for the perfect piece of art to match the image. What is the most important element of a photo?
“It’s the fact that he’s not wearing a shirt,” Rader said. “If you find a similar scene and the person is wearing clothes, it’s not going to be a hit.”
And what came to mind was “The Feast of Bacchus,” by the 17th-century Dutch painter Philips Koninck, which depicts the Greek god of wine and revelry in an angelic, half-naked state of bliss. I am.
The NFL responded to the post, calling it a “great success,” and it has since garnered more than 95,000 likes on X.
Kathryn Riley, the Boston photographer who took the image of Jason Kelsey used by Mr. Rader, remembered the question she asked herself when she saw the post. And how did he know this work of art existed?”
The internet is a crowded place, but Mr. Rader, 34, has accomplished something novel. A largely self-taught art enthusiast from his Upper East side, Mr. Rader has displayed a talent for instant recall to highlight the artistry and absurdity of sports. By identifying these similarities, he brings art to a new audience in the art world and shows that beauty and emotion can surface in unexpected places, such as soccer pitches, ice rinks, and NBA benches. I showed it.
Rader matched a photo of an exhausted long-distance runner with a Baroque-era painting of Jesus Christ. He amplified the greatness of Michael Jordan through the abstract brushwork of Clyfford Still. He invoked Salvador Dali’s melting watches to emphasize the tantrums of tennis players, likened baseball players to stuffed animals, and associated athletes with Rodin sculptures.
The pathos of these classic works of art is echoed by the sporting moments Mr. Rader chooses to highlight, and the comparisons uplift everyone involved: artists, photographers, and, of course, athletes. It just looks like he’s letting it happen. “There’s a feeling that something from 300 or 400 years ago is happening again,” Rader said.
The main difference is that it’s happening on a soccer field rather than inside a church.
“LJ brings art to the people,” said Bisa Butler, a contemporary artist whose work was introduced by Rader. She added, “It is often said that an athlete’s movements are as graceful as a dancer’s, and LJ gave us a vision of the beauty and art of an athlete.” added.
Sometimes it’s not that serious. Consider Mr. Rader’s recent comparison between Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy and Antoine Volon’s late 19th-century still life painting “Mountain of Butter.” Mr. Rader said he was not making fun of Mr. McCarthy’s size.
Rader said, “It’s exactly like the contours of his face,” and Butters is “as bland as his play calls, and most importantly, melts like he does every year in the playoffs.” added.
Mr. Rader said his grandmother, Judith Best, instilled in him an appreciation for the arts when he was growing up in Katonah, New York. He took art history courses as a student at Vanderbilt University.
Although Rader’s formal education in the field was limited (he currently works as a product director for a sports data and technology company), he still frequents museums and uses his mobile phone to The phone has about 10,000 images of works of art stored on it. (One of his folders is labeled “Meme Fuel.”) He also has Substack, where he shares exclusive content with his subscribers.
But when Rader started about four years ago, he simply pasted captions onto images of art. For example, when the Knicks fired David Fizdale as coach in December 2019, Rader broke the news in a small box at the bottom of a 16th-century oil painting of Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist. Inserted in caption. Andrea Solario and one of his more elegant depictions of beheadings.
Over time, Rader realized that instead of writing captions, he could simply combine drawings with sports photos. One of his earliest iterations of that style was an emotional photograph of quarterback Philip Rivers, which Mr. Rader combined with Francis Bacon’s “Study for the Nurse in the Movie Battleship Potemkin.” Ta. This painting depicts a naked woman screaming.
The response was “overwhelming,” Rader said. He discovered the magic of the Internet.
Why does it work? Sports and the arts are often seen as two different worlds, Rader says.
“But I think it shows that these two fields share a lot of similarities in structure, emotion and talent,” he said, “and at the end of the day, I We may not be that different.”
Like any keen-eyed social critic, Mr. Rader can be ruthless. In mid-September, Jets coach Robert Saleh was seen on the sideline “looking like he didn’t really want to be there” during the first minutes of the Jets’ season opener against the Bills on a television broadcast. I caught it. Rader said. So he combined Saleh’s screenshots with Edvard Munch’s “Self-Portrait in Hell.” This painting is over 100 years old. The Jets ended their eighth consecutive season with a losing record.
“I think another theme that tends to get talked about a lot is that time is a flat circle,” Rader said.
He cited the early Renaissance Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch as a figure with whom he had little sympathy. But Bosch’s work, which Rader scrutinized and compared with college students destroying goalposts, Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets, and victory parades, conveys a universal and enduring human emotion.
Angie Treasure, the Utah Jazz’s senior director of content, asked Rader last summer to help release the team’s 2023-24 schedule.
“He is a scholar,” said Mr. Treasure. “I remember everyone being shocked when they found out he didn’t just run the photos through an AI generator.”
As Mr. Rader’s work has grown in popularity, speculation has grown among his followers about how he conducts his business, including speculation that he may be using artificial intelligence. Rader said that’s definitely not the case. First, he said his research is older than his ChatGPT and other of his AI tools. Next, what can you enjoy about using a computer?
“I do it for fun,” he said. “It keeps my mind sharp and allows me to get out of the house and go to different galleries, shows and museums.”
In a video chat interview, Rader asked for a stack of sports photos so he could examine them on the spot.
Amid a series of strange comparisons, Mr. Rader compared a photo of Dwight Clark’s San Francisco 49ers touchdown reception in the 1981 NFC Championship Game, “The Catch,” with a photo of “Sabine Woman’s Intervention.” It took about 2.7 seconds to match. 18th century painting by Jacques-Louis David. What resonated with Rader in this painting was not the main subject, but rather the woman holding a baby over her head as a battle engulfed the background. (She might have been catching a soccer ball in a crowd of defenders.)
Rader says he’s good at remembering patterns and themes from works of art he’s seen or studied. That skill set doesn’t translate to other aspects of his life.
“I always forget my keys,” he said.
[ad_2]
Source link
