SOFT SCORE - FULLER CRAFT MUSEUM - SOLO 2024

Maria Molteni: Soft Score is a site-specific exhibition that explores dynamic intersections of art and athletics. Created specifically for Fuller Craft Museum by queer Boston artist Maria Molteni (they/them), Soft Score employs “crafletic” expression for personal reflection and communal magic. Built upon 15+ years of socially engaged public artwork, it also emphasizes the importance of intersectionality and equity, within sports industry and community spaces alike.

Works in Soft Score offer multiple layers of interpretation rooted in both sensitive and cerebral aspects of art and sport—basketball in particular. On Molteni’s outdoor painted courts, movement between varied systems of symbology and instruction—from quilting motifs to offensive diagrams, nautical flag coding to free-throw choreography—employs a playful practice of translation. In the gallery: a ball-handling routine derived from a b-ball net knitting pattern is performed by the artist. A cloudscape of welded hoops evokes basketball’s dreamy campaign to “get air.” A humbly humorous fan-and-pom-pom pairing positions the audience as performer in a classic activation— “the wave.”

Resourceful craft techniques and conceptual rigor point out the malleability of language and fluid relationships of spectator to participant. Molteni deftly creates their own hybrid systems to integrate abstraction, intuition, and embodiment. They aim to cultivate a sense of belonging in sports and art worlds so that all feel welcome, with or without a brush or ball.