And the Crowd Goes Wild, at UNDERSTORY

Sports, spectacle, and social critique converge at UNDERSTORY in And the Crowd Goes Wild, running October 15 through November 29. Co-curators Susan Snipes and Naomi Even-Aberle present artists who question the structures behind athletic culture and reframe sport as a vehicle for storytelling, resistance, and social commentary.

Sport is far more than a game. This exhibition positions the athletic arena as a microcosm of society—a space where power, performance, and discipline collide, and dominant values are both reinforced and contested. From the playing field to behind-the-scenes moments in the locker room, our visual and auditory experience of sport is engineered to intensify excitement and allegiance.

Jessica Lambert engages with sculpture using sports equipment, rituals, and biomechanics. Her work transforms physical labor into an aesthetic investigation of material, motion, and discipline. Drawing on her experience as an athlete, she identifies parallels between the arena and the gallery.

In their All-American video series, Martinez E-B and A. J. Bermudez question who belongs in the national imagination. Drawing from sports language that signals idealized excellence, E-B and Bermudez reclaim the phrase to examine race, nationalism, and inclusion in the American narrative.

Judy Takács offers a compelling twist on a common phrase in her portrait series Chick With Balls. Women are depicted holding or surrounded by soccer balls, baseballs, or other sports balls, symbolizing strength, pressure, and responsibility. Her work reclaims the language of sport to celebrate women’s fortitude.

Jamie Zimchek and Naomi Even-Aberle’s collaboration, Level the Playing Field, uses the structure of sports traditions to critique hierarchies of power. By subverting athletic language and symbolism, they reveal how control is asserted and maintained both on and beyond the field.

A familiar exclamation from sports broadcasts, “and the crowd goes wild!” instantly evokes collective euphoria. This exhibition replays this phrase as a catalyst for deeper questioning of what fuels the frenzy. What are we really cheering for? What does our enthusiasm empower? This signal to popular culture becomes an entry point for deeper inquiry, setting the tone for an exhibition that balances playful spectacle with cultural critique.

Join us for the opening reception of And the Crowd Goes Wild from 5 to 8 pm on Wednesday, October 15, at UNDERSTORY, located on the RAMP (lower level) at 78th Street Studios in Cleveland.

UNDERSTORY
1305 West 80th Street, Suite 019Cleveland, Ohio 44102understory.art

EVENTS

Terms of Engagement, August 13–September 27

And the Crowd Goes Wild, October 15–November 29. Opening reception 5-8 pm Wednesday, October 15