Sporting events, such as political whitewashing campaigns, are an installation that reflects on the use of major sporting events as tools for political legitimization and propaganda.
The selected pieces on display include photographic images, works of art, press clippings, documents, and audiovisual materials that illustrate the modus operandi of the spectacle and entertainment that function as political propaganda.
Each part of this project articulates the idea that host nations freely and deliberately transition from repression to entertainment, using sport as an instrument of political legitimization.
The exhibition will be open to the public starting March 26 in the Contemporary Hall of this venue, and until August 2 of this year.
Curated by Roberto Barajas, the exhibition presents several cases linked to FIFA World Cups and modern Olympic Games where "sportswashing" was practiced—a term associated with the practice of an economic group, individual, corporation, or country using sport to clean up its damaged reputation.
Among the cases addressed by the exhibition are the 1934 World Cup in Italy, organized by Mussolini; the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, one of the most representative cases of sport as political propaganda; the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, parallel to the presidential campaign of Luis Echeverría; among many others.
Additionally, it addresses failed attempts at inclusion, social protests that have arisen around these events, and denunciations against corrupt governments that "wash their hands" under the slogan that "the show must go on."
Among the exhibited materials, those from the CCUT collections stand out, such as the figurines and models from the University Fund of Art of the Original Peoples (FUAPO), the political caricature by Rogelio Naranjo, posters related to the Olympic Games and the 1968 Cultural Olympiad in Mexico. There are also works from other institutions, such as photographs from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, from the "Francisco Xavier Clavigero" Library of the Iberoamerican University, and posters and photographs from the MODO Museum.
Works by Erick Meyenberg and Attilio Tuis can also be found; a video installation by the Argentine artist Adriana Bustos, which brings together two sporting events, distant in time but united by dictatorship: the 1936 Olympics, with Hitler, and the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, during Videla's military government; press clippings from various newspapers that record incidents, acts of terrorism, and other conflicts that occurred as part of the political and social tensions that have accompanied these events.
To complement the exhibition, there will be an academic program of "Tables with Specialists," in which researchers and academics will discuss the four thematic axes of the installation: 1) political ideology and social discipline as entertainment, 2) FIFA's blunders and censures, 3) the '71 Cup and organizational omissions, and 4) a red card for the state. Concealments, repressions, and other forms of violence.
Less than 100 days before the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, in which the United States, Canada, and Mexico will be hosts, the University Cultural Center Tlatelolco of UNAM premieres the exhibition "Sportswashing."
