Reimagining the art of the beautiful game

As art and football mag OOF releases its second issue to coincide with the World Cup, co-founder Justin Hammond talks about the relationship between the two disciplines and why he won’t be featuring another illustration of Eric Cantona anytime soon

Football and art aren’t generally considered to be the most comfortable of bedfellows. OOF – a biannual print magazine that looks at how visual culture crosses over with the sport – begs to differ, however. It probably helps that the duo behind the publication is Time Out’s visual art editor Eddy Frankel and curator Justin Hammond, both of whom also happen to be massive football fans.

The idea for the magazine came about after a chance first meeting when Frankel went to review one of Hammond’s exhibitions at his eponymous gallery in North London, after which the two of them ended up in the pub (“where all the best ideas happen,” says Hammond).