Carlos Idun-Tawiah Ghanaian, b. 18/5/1997
Edition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofs
A concrete yard with a wall painted end to end in murals. In the foreground, sitting on a stack of car tyres with his back to us, a boy in a white shirt carrying a large black number 1, and red shorts. One hand rests on a football. The other is up, index finger raised. Facing him, standing, a much smaller boy in a yellow and black striped jersey and orange boots, one foot on a ball of his own, listening. Behind them other children play and a goal frame leans against the wall.
The finger is the whole thing. It is the gesture of somebody making the first of several points, and it rhymes without any fuss with the number on his back and with the title. Whatever is being explained has an order to it, a first and a second and a third. The small boy in the stripes has stopped playing in order to hear it, which at that age is the entire compliment.
The tyres are what make this Accra and not a training ground. No benches, no proper goalposts, a wall somebody painted because it was there. Idun-Tawiah stages his pictures carefully and this one has the props of a coaching session assembled from whatever the yard could supply. The football is real, the instruction is real, and the tactics board is one boy's finger held up against a painted wall.
