No One Wins – Multibasket by Llobet & Pons on Teshima

Back in 2013, I was quite surprised that Teshima didn’t have that many new artworks for the Setouchi Triennale. Moreover, I was a bit “doubtful” about the only new piece in the village of Karato. I’m talking about No One Wins – Multibasket by Jasmina Llobet & Luis Fernandez Pons.

A big map of Teshima with a bunch of basketball hoops on it…

Really?

I know that the lines between what constitutes art and what doesn’t are often pretty blurred, but in this case, we’re really speaking about strange looking basketball hoops! I didn’t want to think “bad joke on us” before seeing the thing, but it was difficult to keep an open mind. Was I also a bit bitter because Llobet & Pons had first agreed to an interview with me (back when I interviewed a few artists in 2013) to only give me the cold shoulder at the last moment? Maybe a little, I have to admit.

Anyways, it all changed when I finally got to experience this Multibasket:

Is it art? Honestly, I still don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. It’s one of the things I love about the Setouchi Triennale, it creates spaces and experiences that are unique, not like anything else you’ve ever seen or experienced. It creates patches of a different reality, and No One Wins – Multibasket is one of the perfect examples of that. Once you see and – more important – experience it, you realize that this work is one of the most fun, relaxing and friendly of Art Setouchi.

It was simply great to just throw a bunch of balls into a bunch of hoops (or at least tried to do so, I really suck at basketball), and it just put a big smile on the faces of everyone involved.

At times, when you visit the works of art on the Seto Inland Sea islands, you have this tendency to ignore the other visitors, that is when they are not more bothersome for you than anything else (for example, when they’re in the way of that shot you want to take, when you’d like to have the artwork all for yourself and it’s crowded – hint: come off-season – not even mentioning the huge waiting lines during the peak of the Triennale). Nothing of the sort in this courtyard of Karato-hama. If anything, Multibasket is a place of meeting and sharing. Few words will be exchanged, but lots of smiles and laughs will. Good mood is the general feeling around this giant and weird basketball post. A good time is most like what’s going to happen there.

If only for that, No One Wins – Multibasket, art of no art, is the perfect representative of one of the things that the Setouchi Triennale is trying to achieve and, as such, is a great success.

Thank you Llobet & Pons.

No One Wins – Multibasket is a permanent feature of Art Setouchi, and as pretty much every other outdoor artwork, it’s available at all time (not completely sure whether the basketballs also are, but I assume so).

It is located in the corner of a large courtyard, on your left, when you’re in Karato-hama, walking towards Boltanski’s Archives du Coeur. Make sure you have room for it on your schedule when you visit Teshima.