Art gallery to be installed in Tottenham stadium complex

Tottenham Hotspur doesn’t have a manager. It doesn’t even have a cheese room! But coming soon, they’re going to have an art gallery. According to The Art Newspaper, a new gallery with a rotating art exhibit will be installed in the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium complex, so footy fans can get some culture on their way to, or back from, Spurs matches.

The gallery will be housed in the Grade II listed Warmington House historical building, which is sandwiched between part of the stadium complex’s walls, and is accessible via the club shop. It’s being run by OOF Magazine, and according to OOF founder (and Spurs fan!) Eddie Frankel, the exhibits will be geared not towards aficionados, but casual fans who may not be super familiar with high art.

“I liked the idea of people walking to the match and going past art, like a window gallery. So I just approached the club and said, ‘I’m Time Out’s art critic and I run this magazine. Can we open a gallery in your stadium?’ And somehow they liked the idea.

“We’re not curating shows for art snobs or people who have degrees from Goldsmiths or the Courtauld. We’re curating specifically for people who would not normally go to a gallery.”

Apparently, the first exhibit will be titled BALLS and will prominently feature works of art and sculpture that feature or depict footballs. Seems appropriate for an art gallery located right next to a football stadium, right?

I kind of love this idea. I have always appreciated art, think it should be in more places that don’t usually have art in or near them, and I think a lot of fans would enjoy this as well, even if they only glance at it as they walk by. It’s in a high traffic area of the stadium, just off of the club shop, so there will be plenty of eyeballs on it as well. And if fans decide to be vocal about how the art sucks? Well, the exhibit owners are prepared for that too.

“We’re ready for it, but we are also massive football fans. And we’re coming at it from a football perspective. Football is a way of looking at society—we’re talking about celebrity and obsession and success through the lens of football, which I think makes it really appealing to lots of people. We hope the gallery will be good for the area.”

The exhibit will open on July 23, 2021.