Oof (stylised as OOF) is an art and football magazine, and an associated art gallery. The magazine launched in 2018 and is published twice a year. The gallery opened in 2021, and is located at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The magazine and gallery both showcase football-related visual art.
OOF was founded by Time Out London art writer and critic Eddy Frankel and gallerists/curators Jennie and Justin Hammond. Frankel says that he had tried to keep his passions for art and football separate, until he realised that there were more people in the art world with an interest in football than he had expected.
OOF started as a magazine. The first issue was published in February 2018. It included an interview with Rose Wylie and features on Chris Ofili and Leo Fitzmaurice.
The magazine is published biannually, and aims to use art to explore some of the meaning behind football.
OOF has collaborated with other organisations in the world of art and design.
In 2019, Oof organised a five-a-side football tournament between teams from arts organisations including Lisson Gallery, Christie's and Tate.
In 2021, OOF partnered with Umbro to produce limited edition artist-designed football shirts with Juno Calypso and Rhys Coren.
In the years after the magazine's launch, OOF organised exhibitions of football-related art at venues around London, exhibiting work from artists including Juno Calypso, Juergen Teller and Chris Ofili. In 2021, Frankel and Jennie and Justin Hammond opened a permanent exhibition space. OOF Gallery is a Grade-II listed Georgian townhouse located in Warmington House, entered via the Tottenham Hotspur club shop ('The Spurs Experience') at the team's London stadium. Tottenham Hotspur have no curatorial say in the gallery's activities.
The gallery exhibits well-known artists alongside emerging, young artists. It is mainly attended (98% of visitors) by those who have not attended galleries previously. The aim is to "make art a normal part of people's lives". Creative Review described the gallery as "an unpretentious entry point into contemporary art, a world all-too-often shrouded in exclusivity." Frankel says that very little of the work they do is about football, but "Football is a microcosm of society...And artists can exploit that."
The gallery directors are founders Eddy Frankel, Jennie Hammond and Justin Hammond.
It is a commercial gallery, with works of art on sale from $10 to $120,000.
The gallery's inaugural exhibition Balls featured 17 works by a range of artists, including new pieces from young artists as well as older work from some of the Young British Artists, including Sarah Lucas, Gavin Turk and Marcus Harvey. The exhibition was inspired by a series of Instagram posts by Justin Hammond titled 'useless footballs'. The exhibition was intended to have an immediacy, where "Even if you donâÂÂt know anything about art, youâÂÂll know immediately itâÂÂs a room filled with sculptures of footballs." Apollo described the art in the exhibition as "terrific", while The New York Times quoted one visitor describing what he saw as a "load of rubbish". ESPN described the exhibition as "a light-hearted blend of introspection, nostalgia and fun." For the exhibition, the gallery also hired three young people through the UK government's Kickstarter scheme, to assist in the gallery and help visitors "navigate the art and figure it all out".
In 2022, the gallery hosted an exhibition of work by photographer Martin Parr and multidisciplinary artist Corbin Shaw, with works themed around the experiences of football fandom. Shaw's banners and flags were shown alongside Parr's black and white photographs of fans in Bradford, Halifax Town and Hartlepool in the early-80s.
In 2022, the gallery showed an exhibition of football scarf designs by artists. It featured over 100 designs by artists including David Shrigley, Guerrilla Girls, Gray Wielebinski and Bedwyr Williams. It was shown alongside an exhibition of Mark Titchner's work called The Hope That Keeps Us Here. The gallery has said they try to show more accessible exhibitions alongside more traditional art exhibitions to cater for their diversity of visitors, many of whom may not usually go to art galleries.
Alongside the gallery, OOF offers several artist studios. They offer a free residency at the studios. Previous residents have included Evie OâÂÂConnor, Kirsty Sim, Leyman Lahcine, Shannon Bono, Winnie Hall, JJ Guest, Louise Ashcroft, Christian Jeffery,àNell Nicholas, Nicole Chui, AC Larsen and Mary Yacoob.