March Madness Hits New York’s Art World With Basketball-Themed Show at Salon 94

Richard Avedon, Lew Alcindor, basketball player, New York, 1963.
Richard Avedon, Lew Alcindor, basketball player, New York, 1963.

The Knicks are fighting for a playoff spot, your coworkers are poring over their NCAA brackets, hoping for a miracle, and now New York’s Salon 94 gallery is getting into the act with “Transition Game,” a group exhibition exploring the intersection of basketball, art, and the civil rights movement.

Curated by Fabienne Stephan and Adam Shopkorn, the show features paintings and photographs of college and high school basketball stars from the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s by Howard Kanovitz, Lucien Smith, Richard Avedon, and Lorna Simpson.

If less-than-stellar results in your March Madness pool have you feeling down this weekend, head to the Lower East Side for hyper-realistic portraits done by Kanovitz based on photos he took for Sports Illustrated, and Avedon’s 1963 portrait of Lew Alcindor, better known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

“Transition Game” is on view through April 28.


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