If you’re not yet indoctrinated, it is my singular pleasure to introduce you to your new favorite account on Twitter and Instagram: Art But Make It Sports.
Listen, the rhetoric about sports online can get boring. Everyone is making the same jokes. The hot takes are predictably outlandish. A fresh perspective is welcome. That’s one of the reasons why LJ Rader, a product manager at a sports data company, created the account.
Unfortunately, the art world doesn’t intersect with the sports world as often as I’d like. But when it does, it can be beautiful, and I aim to help amplify the message.
I have a soft spot for art about sports. I wrote a long feature about Tyrrell Winston, a visual artist who literally uses basketballs as a medium for his work. I caught up with Andrew Kuo, another visual artist who hosts the NBA podcast Cookies Hoops. I spoke with Efdot as he painted a basketball mural in Brooklyn.
Rader isn’t creating the art himself. However, he does have an astonishing knowledge of the sports world and the art world, and his ability to blend the two together is unparalleled. It’s a fun account to follow, and who knows, maybe you’ll come away from it feeling a bit more like an art scholar with a stronger sense of visual literacy.
We caught up with Rader, the creator of the account, to learn more about this wonderful and welcome breath of fresh air in the sports media universe.
