The Zilkha Gallery's new exhibit has students reconsidering the role of sports in American society.

Wesleyan students are all about reexamining gender norms, so a new installation in the Ezra and Cecil Zilkha Gallery called “Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports” is sure to fit in. The exhibit opened last Friday and contains mostly video, photographic, and sculptural pieces that explore the concept of the macho male athlete. “Mixed Signals” is curated by Christopher Bedford of Independent Curators International (ICI) and Chief Curator at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio.

According to promotional materials for the exhibit, “The artists whose works are featured in ‘Mixed Signals’ offer alternative views of masculinity and sport by exploring the stereotypes, rituals, and specialized gear of this intimate, male-dominated world.”

“Mixed Signals” asks its viewers to reconsider the role of sports in our society. For better or for worse, we, as a culture, are sports-obsessed; we treating simple games with an almost religious fervor. The exhibit explores the way the athletic world shapes the rest of society and our conceptions of masculinity in particular.

Many works in the exhibit examine the role of sports in generating consumerism. A series of two photographs and one MDF sculpture by artist Hank Willis Thomas reapplies the familiar icons of athletic branding in new ways. The particularly striking “Scarred Chest” depicts a man’s naked torso with Nike-swoosh-shaped scars bulging from his skin. “Basketball and Chain” is a photograph of a NBA basketball dangling by a chain from a Nike-sneaker-clad foot. Both pieces seem to imply that the sports world and consumer brands stemming from it have inescapably imprinted themselves upon us. “Michael” by Brian Jungen, similarly examines sports merchandising: it is an artfully arranged stack of Air Jordan shoe boxes with a serene image of sports icon Michael Jordan screen-printed onto them, tying the importance of the cult of celebrity that surrounds the sporting world to the ubiquitous consumerism rampant within it.

Several pieces by artist Paul Pfeiffer apply a different lens to familiar sports iconography–that of religion. Two photos, both entitled “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” (12 and 28), and a video entitled “John 3.16” focus on one of the most important aspects of the sporting world: the ball. Pfeiffer treats the basketball with religious reverence, capturing the complex twists of the human body as it attempts to grab hold of the ball in the photos and tracing the journey of the ball over the course of a basketball play in the video. The religious titles of the works underlie the emotional investment that we as a society have for sports.

Interestingly, the majority of the pieces in “Mixed Signals” focused on just two sports: basketball and football. Are these the most traditionally masculine sports? Or are they simply the most popular and influential sports in American society? Five photographs by Catherine Opie focus on the latter of those two sports and turn from the professional sports world to an arguably more powerful one for shaping society’s conventions of masculinity. Three of the photos are of high school football players standing in uniform in front of the camera, while the other two capture the tension in moment just before an exciting play. Both series suggest that the idealization of male athletes starts in adolescence and thus pervades how these athletes think of themselves and how the world views them.

The exhibit is both engaging and beautiful, but I found myself leaving the gallery pondering the comments on consumerism and the cult-like nature of sports teams rather than masculinity specifically. Maybe that reflects my personal interests rather than the pieces selected, but I didn’t see as much of a questioning of the male role as defined by athleticism as I expected. Regardless, “Mixed Signals” is definitely worth a visit, for whatever critical lens you wish to apply to the vast and fascinating world of sports.

The Ezra and Cecil Zilkha Gallery is open from 12 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday and from 12 to 8 p.m. on Fridays. “Mixed Signals” will be on view through October 23, 2011.

Photo by: David Mai/Contributing Photographer