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FOUND FOOTBALL DIFFICULT
The South London Gallery
London, 2023
Across two galleries, visitors experienced multi-sensory environments where they could play a childhood game or learn a traditional Cypriot dance. Including collaged wallpaper, human corrupted bird song and nostalgic scents of popular 00's aftershaves the work challenges notions of masculinity, nature and nurture.
In one gallery, a sculpture made of a table leg, garden ornament and rubber mask fires bespoke pennies at the wall, a recreation of the game 'Penny Up' played on London estates and by ancient greeks at the Olympics. The game is said to be the origin of Gold, Silver and Bronze medals. The pennies feature an '8 ball', slang for a unit of measurement used when buying drugs. On the other side the coin has a sketch of Michael Jordan's famous flight logo and the number 23, 'The year of the jump!' Family photos stagger the walls in a chronology of criminality. The images of upbringing illustrate a skewed version of what it means to be a man.
In the second gallery a sensory sculpture diffuses 'JOOP!' aftershave into a deep pink, dimly lit space. A pair of the artist's own Gucci loafers are ominously suspended from hundreds of Rosary beads. Audio speakers in the heels recite past memories and reprimands via prison letters from Costi's mother, poems, raps and school reports. A blown up image of one of Costi's brothers wearing a
'LOADSA MONEY' t-shirt smiles down on
you. Unfortunately, the boy in the picture never got the see the show, as he serves a sentence for crimes including Money Laundering