Roger Federer is amazing as an artist. But seeing him become a piece of art is pretty amazing, too. Jean-Pierre Blanchard, a performance speed-artist, did this painting of Federer in four minutes last month in Zurich.
It sold at auction, for charity, for $20,000. That’s $5,000 a minute.
Starving artist? This guy is making more than $80 a second. Reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live bit where Picasso was scribbling something in seconds to pay for his restaurant and bar tabs. “I’m Picasso!” he’d say.
“For the artist,’’ Blanchard once told The Coffee Connoisseur, “all thoughts, all matter, all techniques are a pretest for this creative research. The truth is in the passion that one puts there.’’
I did some research on Blanchard, but there was one problem: I didn’t understand a word these art critics wrote. Apparently, Blanchard is French, and trained classically. And he believes that a combination of music and body movements allows him to make some sort of statement. My own artistic impression is that he’s kind of cool, even better than those guys at Disneyworld. Check out the video.
I can talk tennis all day long, and often do. And yet some of the people I talk to about it might rather I talk about something else.
Or with someone else.
That’s how it is with tennis, right? Sort of an addiction. Sort of a high.
I am a national columnist at FoxSports.com, and have been a columnist at Sporting News, AOL FanHouse and the Chicago Sun-Times.
I’m pretty sure that in 2010, I was the only American sports writer to cover the full two weeks of all four majors, and also to cover each of the U.S. Masters series events.
So I’ve seen a lot of tennis, talked with a lot of players.
I watched from a few rows behind the line judge as Serena rolled that foot onto the baseline for the footfault, a good call, at the 2009 U.S. Open. I sat forever watching a John Isner marathon, leaving for Wimbledon village to watch an England World Cup soccer game at a pub and then returning for hours of Isner, sitting a few feet from his wrecked coach.
I got to see Novak Djokovic and Robin Soderling joke around on a practice court on the middle Sunday at Wimbledon, placing a small wager on a tiebreaker. Djokovic won, and Soderling pulled a bill out of his wallet, crumpled it into his fist and threw it at Djokovic, who unwadded it, kissed it, and told me, “My work is done here.’’
And when Rafael Nadal won the French Open in 2010, I finished my column, walked back out onto the court, and filled an empty tic tac container with the red clay. I’m looking at it right now.
Well, I don’t always see the game the same way others do. I can be hard on tennis, particularly on the characters in suits running it. Tennis has no less scandal and dirt than any other game. Yet somehow, it seems to be covered up, usually from an incredible web of conflicts of interest.
I promise to always tell the truth as I see it. Of course, I would appreciate it if you’d let me know when I’m wrong. I love sports arguments and hope to be in a few of them with you here.
Personal info: One-handed backhand, serve-and-volleyer.
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This entry was posted on Monday, July 18th, 2011 at 12:53 am and tagged with Roger Federer and posted in Roger Federer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Greg Couch is a national general columnist at FoxSports.com, and has traveled the world covering tennis. He is a member of the International Tennis Writers Association. A former sports columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, he is an award-winning journalist whose tennis writing has been anthologized in the book "The Best American Sportswriting."
July 19th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
To be a Good as Him, Only in my Dreams.