It is a bit of a cliche to describe the great Spanish footballer Juan Mata as an artist. But it does capture how his skill, imagination and intelligence have lit up grounds all over the world and seen him garlanded with honours including a World Cup winner’s medal. And in addition it’s also now literally true – off the pitch at least – as Mata prepares to take his place alongside the likes of Yayoi Kusama’s hallucinatory immersive environments and Ryan Gander’s conceptual interventions in the arts strand of this year’s Manchester international festival (MiF).
Mata is collaborating with the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist on a multi-part project called The Trequartista: Art and Football United, the first instalment of which will see Mata working with the German-Indian artist Tino Sehgal on a new piece of performance art that will open later this month at the National Football Museum in Manchester, and subsequently at the Whitworth Gallery in the city.
