Martha Jungwirth Untitled (Neymar), 2021

Among the drips of paint and gestural strokes of colour in Untitled (Neymar) (2021), one can make out the figure of a man lying across the centre of the brown paper ground, his limbs akimbo. Jungwirth abstracted the image from a newspaper clipping picturing Brazilian footballer Neymar clutching his knee in pain after an unprovoked fall during a match. The accompanying caption read: ‘Werbe-Ikone am Boden: Neymar trägt seit kurzem Puma-Schuhe’ (Advertising icon on the ground: Neymar recently started wearing Puma shoes). The drama and theatrics at play in the photograph reminded the artist of Greek sculptures depicting famous battles and fallen heroes. Specifically, Jungwirth cites the statue of a dying soldier from the temple of Aphaia on the Greek island of Aegina that is now on display at the Antiquities Museum in Munich as another source for the work. Combining the two references into a single painting, the artist draws a parallel between old and new heroes, commenting on the dramatisation of war that has fascinated successive civilisations. Standing behind the supine figure, the spectral horse, which has become a recurring motif in Jungwirth’s recent works, further casts the figure of Neymar as a fallen warrior. Its skeletal appearance evokes the liminal space between life and death that is the battlefield, adding a layer of pathos to the work whose monumental size borrows from the codes of history painting, belying the ostensible triviality of its subject.