FIFA 99

Michael Assiff David Roesing Keith J. Varadi

Stadium 2 is pleased to announce FIFA 99, a group exhibition of new works by Michael Assiff, David Roesing, and Keith J. Varadi. The show takes its name from the decades-old transnational organization historically known for two things: Its control of global soccer, and its popular line of soccer simulation video games. FIFA has embodied a common corporate dual role - that of regulation and representation; the bureaucratic task of assembling and enforcing a sprawling global competition, and the rhetorical task of boiling that competition down to a playable system that can be modeled, taught, and distributed. The exhibition explores the implications of these two roles in the arena of sport, itself a shadow of the constant low-grade warfare inherent in global capitalism, especially striking in the wake of FIFA's recent scandals.

The year 1999 once symbolized a sexy future, but here it is used to access the future of the past, and to ask whether it resembles our present. The final years of Bill Clinton, the systemic paranoia of Y2K, and the first protests against something called globalization...a world in the process of transition. Drawing from this territory, each artist in the show maps a representational position relative to this history. We all played soccer, after all; it was objectively good for us.