Sole concerns

A collaboration between the shoe manufacturer Nike and basketball superstar Michael Jordan, Air Jordan I sneakers debuted in 1985, becoming one of the most influential celebrity-endorsed products of all time. Over time, they have also become an important collector item and fodder for numerous contemporary artists, including Brian Jungen and Andy Yoder.

In an exhibition about shared obsessions, it is only fitting that these powerful symbols of celebrity culture and fashion should appear and I AM HERE: Home Movies and Everyday Masterpieces delivers. On loan from the Bata Shoe Museum, the exhibition showcases a pair of Air Jordan Is, worn by the American musician and Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee Nils Lofgren. 

Accompanying these sneakers are two oil paintings by Bertram Brooker (1888-1955), the self-taught British-born Toronto painter. Brooker painted many pairs of shoes and boots during his career, and in these two examples − Ski Boots (Ski Poles) (1936) and Shoes (1934/35) − the shoes are imbued with the presence of the people who had owned them, the worn leather molded to the shape of someone's feet. Adjacent to them and powerfully evoking loss is a small photograph by artist and musician Patti Smith, of the slippers — now empty —  that belonged to her beloved friend, the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe. There is a familiar beauty in these worn, commonplace items—a sense of life paused.

These Nike Air Jordan Is were generously donated to the Bata Shoe Museum by a Toronto collector named Chris Cockerham. We reached out to him to find out more. 

AGOinsider: Can you tell us how these shoes came into your possession?  

Cockerham:  It is not glamorous. I was looking through eBay with broad word searches.

AGOinsider:  What associations do you have with these shoes? 

Cockerham: When I was a teenager, the kids that rode skateboards wore these shoes, not just the basketball players.

AGOinsider:  Collecting is a human impulse. Do you collect other things? Why do you think we do it? 

Cockerham: Yes, I like to collect things. Mostly it is about a connection to the past.

AGOinsider:  What prompted you to donate them to the Bata Shoe Museum?

Cockerham: So everyone could have them.

AGOinsider: The expression, “You don’t know anyone until you walk a mile in their shoes.” seems apt here. What do shoes tell you about a person?

Cockerham: We are all different, even if we wear the same shoes.

 I AM HERE: Home Movies and Everyday Masterpieces is on view now through August 14. Subscribe to the AGOinsider for more stories and art news, delivered each week to your inbox.