From Playmaker to Curator: Juan Mata’s Next Big Move Is in the Art World
As one of football’s most cerebral midfielders, Juan Mata spent his career weaving passes and orchestrating play with elegance. Now, in a move as visionary as his on-pitch performances, Mata is stepping into the world of contemporary art as a co-curator of Football City, Art United, a flagship exhibition at the 2025 Manchester International Festival.
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Co-curated alongside world-renowned curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and filmmaker-writer Josh Willdigg, the exhibition blurs boundaries between sport and contemporary art. Set to open on July 4 at Aviva Studios, the expansive show runs through August 24 before touring China and Canada. Hosted by Factory International, it explores the global game as a cultural and artistic phenomenon, challenging audiences to reconsider football not just as sport, but as a deeply expressive medium.
AMG Presents Moonboots
The exhibition showcases eleven collaborations between footballers and contemporary artists, with confirmed pairings including Eric Cantona and Ryan Gander, Edgar Davids and Paul Pfeiffer, and Carlo Ancelotti with Philippe Parreno. Mata, known for his intellect and cultural curiosity, is helping guide a narrative that sees footballers as storytellers and creators in their own right.
The fusion of disciplines includes immersive installations, holograms, video games, and sculptures. This cross-genre approach rethinks how athletic identity can extend beyond performance, suggesting a continuum between physical creativity on the field and conceptual innovation in the studio.
Football has long had aesthetic dimensions—from the elegance of a Cruyff turn to the symbolism in stadium architecture—but institutional art spaces have rarely treated it as serious artistic material. Mata’s involvement signals a shift in cultural perception: athletes, especially those with broad interests beyond sport, are increasingly seen as multidimensional contributors to public discourse.
Manchester, a city steeped in both football heritage and industrial-era cultural production, is an apt setting for this evolution. The exhibition reflects not just the city’s past, but its future as a hub for global cross-pollination in arts, ideas, and sport.
Football City, Art United is not merely about spectacle; it is a thoughtful reimagining of what it means to play, to create, and to connect. In taking his creativity off the pitch and into the gallery, Juan Mata offers a playbook for the modern athlete: articulate, globally engaged, and artistically fluent.
