Battle for the Lombardi Trophy c. 1980

Curator: Looking at this mad scrum, the first thing that strikes me is its sheer, joyous, chaotic energy! It’s a beautiful visual roar. Editor: This is Jack Davis’s, "Battle for the Lombardi Trophy," created around 1980. The medium here, watercolour on paper, gives it a kind of immediacy, almost like a newsprint comic blown up large. And look at the trophy itself—starkly rendered, almost a byproduct. The labor, of course, is all the other work in the piece. Curator: A byproduct indeed, dwarfed by the sheer muscularity of the figures reaching for it. You can almost smell the sweat and hear the grunts. Davis captures something so primal, stripping away the veneer of strategy and money and revealing pure, visceral competition. I mean, look at the way the players' faces are caricatured—every straining sinew and bulging eye amplified for comic effect. Editor: And that's what is so fascinating—the deliberate flattening. It’s caricature, yes, but the players aren't simply represented; they’re rendered as product, almost widgets stamped out on a line. Watercolor allows for a speed and volume of production which complements its topic. Notice too the historical context – various team kits on show…almost as if team branding is product. Curator: You make me think… they’re reaching not just for the trophy but for a piece of immortality. Isn't that what athletes – and artists, perhaps – crave most? To be remembered, celebrated, turned into legend. Editor: That striving and these watercolor washes echo each other materially… I notice it's an echo of a manufacturing process – branding, rendering people into cartoons – but a hand made one here. It is charming, as much for what is says, as what it implies… it would be easy to assume, "ah, he's just poking fun." but perhaps its a sincere celebration of making and a critique of consumption all at once? Curator: Yes, precisely. There’s a sincerity here beneath the surface chaos. We might remember the glitz and glamour, but works like this remind us of what makes something special in art. Editor: Agreed. An accessible critique using equally accessible media, capturing the spirit and labor of an entire epoch in one beautiful scramble.