ANDREW RAFACZ

#23In 1995, Leonardo was the captain of the Queens Falcons, a borough football team from Queens, NY. The artist grew up in an era punctuated by interracial strife. Events such as the Central Park jogger case in 1989, the Crown Heights Riot and beating of Rodney King both in 1991, the subsequent Los Angeles race riots the following year, and the acquittal of O.J. Simpson in the fall of 1995 all contributed to a complex backdrop of local and national conflicts defined by race. However, he and his teammates, under the mentorship of a diverse coaching staff led by an older Jewish head coach, moved beyond individual ethnic and cultural divides to truly bond as a team.  They were the only multiracial team in their league, and despite their differences, rough practices on asphalt and dirt, beatings from other teams, and epic inter-borough rivalries, they rallied over the course of one magical undefeated season to trounce their opponents and take home that year’s championship.  The artist has long since left football behind, but his work remains deeply influenced by his early experiences with masculinity, community, competition, identity and place. Utilizing interviews with coaches and teammates, Leonardo—with the help of actors— reembodies that unforgettable season and ponders the question, ‘was it really as good as we remember it?’ Referencing Leonardo’s own number as a player, #23  asks important and difficult questions. As the artist articulates, ‘why, as young men, would we commit ourselves to a rite of passage that necessitates violence as a means of obtaining a sense of belonging? What continues to draw us back to this concept of team and its associations of honor and glory, even when all evidence shows that the punishment quite literally eats away at our ability to think… to be human?’