Portraits of the NBA Draft

Consider the evolution of the humble Ping-Pong ball: Once an unassuming staple of suburban rec rooms, it’s now the prime determinant of how millions of dollars are awarded in the state lottery. It also figures prominently in another kind of high-stakes lottery — the one that determines the sequence of teams at the beginning of the NBA draft, which takes place tomorrow night at Madison Square Garden.Those elements — chance, Ping-Pong balls, and basketball — will come together this evening at an unusual event being hosted by No Mas, a local streetwear brand. The function, which is simply called “The Lottery,” is a sports-themed participatory art show featuring 105 portraits that document the NBA’s lottery picks (the players chosen with the early picks in the first round of the draft) between 1985 and 1995. The art will be raffled off to attendees via a draftstyle lottery, complete with a Ping-Pong ball machine identical to the one used by the NBA.“Lotteries go back to Homeric Greece, where soldiers would draw tokens to determine who’d go on a dangerous mission,” the founder and president of No Mas, Chris Isenberg, said. “It’s sort of remarkable that the fate of these world class athletes, millions of fans, and millions of dollars could be determined by essentially the same mechanism, and by something as banal as a Ping-Pong ball.”Here’s how the event will work: Each of the expected 500 attendees will be given a scratch-off ticket, which will reveal a number. Seven numbered Ping-Pong balls will then be selected by the machine, and the people holding those numbers will get to choose one of the portraits. A David Sternlike “commissioner” (actually an actor) will preside over the proceedings, and participants will be encouraged to trade, barter, or otherwise negotiate to get the players they covet.That’s where things may get interesting. In art, as with sports prospects, value is a very speculative notion. Will attendees simply grab the portraits of the most successful players? Will a Knicks fan want the portrait of Patrick Ewing? Will the portrait of Len Bias — the University of Maryland star’s cocaine-related death less than 48 hours after he was drafted by the Celtics in 1986 still looms over every NBA draft — be a hot item or will it be avoided like the plague?“It wouldn’t be much fun if people based their choices only on the players’ performance,” Mr. Isenberg said. “But I don’t think that will happen. I’m curious to see what people base their picks on.”As for the art itself, Mr. Isenberg originally considered having miniaturist portraits painted onto the Ping-Pong balls. When that proved unfeasible, he began working with Yan Kallen, a graphic designer, to create a series of 8-inchby-10-inch C-prints based on old photographs of the various players. The photos were enlarged, filtered, cropped, and color-tinted (the hues match the team colors for the club that drafted each player), creating a pop art effect that is unmistakably Warholian.“We didn’t plan it that way, but that’s sort of how it evolved,” Mr. Kallen said. “In a way it makes sense, because Warhol was known for making icons out of everyday items, and the NBA lottery essentially turns these college kids into icons, too.”The pressures of that iconic status, and the near-Shakespearean falls from grace that sometimes follow, are a running theme in Mr. Isenberg’s work. One of No Mas’s slogans is “the thrill of victory and the ecstasy of defeat,” and the company’s product line includes old Champion-brand sweatshirts with the word “Former” embroidered just above the Champion logo on the front and the name of a disgraced athlete (Darryl Strawberry, Ricky Williams, Pete Rose, and so on) sewn onto the back.“For my generation, our athletes are extremely flawed, and they’ve often wasted the gifts they’ve been given,” Mr. Isenberg, 34, said. “We didn’t have Muhammad Ali; we had Mike Tyson.” He sees this as the dark side of the lottery: Which of the young players selected in tomorrow’s NBA draft will be fated to succumb to drugs, scandal, or even death, like Len Bias? As Mr. Isenberg puts it, this is how the lottery “reveals itself to be not just method, but also metaphor.”That dark metaphor will resonate further at tonight’s event, thanks to a fairly remarkable coincidence. Remember Shirley Jackson’s classic short story “The Lottery,” in which a small town’s residents gather to select one citizen to be stoned to death? In the story, the annual ritual takes place on June 27 — today. Asked if he scheduled his lottery event to coincide with Ms. Jackson’s, Mr. Isenberg pleaded ignorance, but he sounded pleased with the happenstance. Just another of life’s metaphorical Ping-Pong balls.“The Lottery” takes place tonight at 7:30 p.m. at 31 W. 19th Street. Reservations required before 4 p.m. by emailing lottery@nomasnyc.com. The portraits will be on view tomorrow between noon and 8 p.m.

Portraits of the NBA Draft

Portraits of the NBA Draft

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