Juan Mata is back to Manchester to join Cantona’s art and football

The footballer of Spain John Eyes, World Champion and Team Star Valencia and Chelseahe returned to the city of Manchester, What has been her home for almost ten years, to join football and art in an exciting exhibition with legends such as Eric Cantona or Edgar Davids.

The exhibition ‘Football City, Art United’, which can be visited at Aviva Studios of the English city from July 4 to August 24th, accumulates on the occasion of Manchester International Festival 2025 Paintings, facilities and other works of art related to the world of football.

“You can find a lot of football, lots of art, and a connection that I think has never been seen,” he said Kill To make this exhibition shown this Thursday in the press and where there is a incompatible football atmosphere.

In the large quadrangular space where the facilities are interspersed, the visitor is placed on the skin of a professional footballer while walking in the hobby of a costume tunnel with a thunder sound of fans singing expecting what’s coming.

Commissioner with two eminences

But not just football. To accomplish this project, Mata surrounded himself with two eminences in the art world such as the well -known commissioner of London Serpentine Gallery, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and the filmmaker and commissioner Josh WillDigg, who was with the Idea Café in between.

“I met Hans and Josh. One day we had coffee, we talked about football, we talked about art. The idea of ​​doing something together and my immediate reaction arose is why not? Doing something I consider to teach me,” he explained.

For Mata, this exhibition is something “necessary”, which Eric Cantona shared with him, whose great passion for the art – he called to admit that he always wanted to be an actor – led him to cooperate with this exhibition with British conceptual artist Ryan Gander.

Both Hindsight ‘privileges are shown (hindsight’ (reference privileges), an installation consisting of a focus randomly following some of the guests, while speakers sound ‘Le Temps Passe’, a song written by Cantona himself.

“Everyone in our perfect team I called him, received it well, and, if there was a player who represents being an actor, Eric Cantona. Everything he did in his career and especially later, with his performances as an actor, music, theater … was a lot and received it well,” Mata said.

From Maradona to Kagago

The difficulty of developing this universe where they live as similar football and art has joined “a job of years,” says Mata, so that the union between soccer players like Japanese Shinji Kagago, Dutch Edgar Davids or Argentine star Diego Armando Maradona will work.

The Fluff figure was resurrected by artist Jill Mulleady, who presents a Maradona Bailón with the equipment of Boca’s juniors and the choice of her country while one of the hymns that accompanied her to her sound: ‘The hand of God’ (2000) of Rodrigo.

Kagago cooperated with his countryman Chikyuu no Oakana Ponchan, with him with funny sleeves telling his story through the real moments he passed, and Davids also made Paul Pfeiffer, with whom he created the entrance tunnel at the exhibition.

“It’s about connecting these two worlds that have been separated history, but you can find fun, you can find a sound, you can find very strong visual things,” said an excited murder.