Edo Ball: The Art of Basketball

A captivating work of cultural blending unlike anything created prior, Andrew Archer’s Edo Ball must be seen to be believed.

This series of paintings seamlessly fuses contemporary basketball imagery with Edo-period Japanese art and culture, with captivating results. Each image riffs on a classic Japanese painting or subject, adding a surprisingly weighty visual twist as Archer’s deft world-building weaves these disparate visual iconographies into a cohesive whole.

Often front and center, an NBA personality is dramatically re-imagined and yet recognizable, surrounded by the myriad trappings of the “floating” world. See Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa re-imagined as a court bursting apart at the floorboards and carried forward by a surge of hundreds of basketballs. A Torii gateway becomes the backstop for a basketball hoop, with a backdrop of mountains and a vast, snowy sky. Brief, accompanying texts describe the thematic connections between each painting’s converging themes, and explore the roles that culture, community, celebrity, and games play in our daily lives.



Featuring:

Lebron James • James Harden • The Mask / Kyrie Irving • Shaquille O’Neal • Dirk Nowitzki • Dikembe Mutombo • The Brodie / Russell Westbrook • The Splash Brothers / Stephen Curry & Klay Thompson • The Black Mamba / Kobe Bryant • Vince Carter • Karl-Anthony Towns • The Greek Freak / Giannis Antetokounmpo • The Durantula / Kevin Durant • Allen “The Answer” Iverson • The Reign Man / Shawn Kemp • Anthony “The Brow” Davis • Damian “Dame Time” Lillard • White Chocolate / Jason Williams • The Law / Kawhi Leonard