Leo & Pipo are a French street artist duo who get their kicks plastering life-sized retro portraits on the gritty, weathered walls of Paris. In between, while the glue is drying, they scour the internet for collage artists to create imaginary portraits of them using old photographs they provide. This is where I fit into their story.
Incidentally, they’re also the inventors of tennis, as you’ll discover below.
- Type: Commissioned
- Year: 2020
Tennis
Tennis is a racket sport played between two teams composed of three players; two boys preferably under the age of twelve, one of which plays inside an amphora, and a racket-beaked crane. Each player uses a racket strung with vermicelli, made in China or self-grown, to strike a fluorescent, felt-covered egg, made in China or self-made, over a net and into the opponent’s non-stick cookware. The object of the game is to make the most omelettes without breaking eggs while singing “La Traviata” in an incredulously questioning tone reminiscent of a suspect denying infanticide. The winning team is given asylum in the country of their choice.
Historians believe the sport originated in the early 18th century, in the small town of Oscella dei Leponzi, in northern Italy, and credit its invention to the Salametti brothers, Pipo and Leo. Pipo, who was raised inside an amphora after his parents mistook him for a hermit crab at birth, was finger-walking home one day with his older brother Leo when he tripped on a papier-mâché exoskeleton and knocked over the ivory tower a racket-beaked crane was perched on, causing one of its eggs to fall. The egg flew over the fishing net a mezzo-soprano opera singer was mending outside of her evil lair, ricocheted off Leo’s foretelling palm before Pipo pulled a wok out of his bowl cut with an unapologetically swift move and caught the egg unscathed.
All the spectators went wild and exclaimed “Tenissimo!”, which can be translated as “Tremendous!” in the local dialect, after which the sport later took its name. The crane, Giuseppe, also known as “Weird Pie” for his uncanny impersonation of an oddly-shaped pastry, congratulated Leo and Pipo on their amazing feat. They quickly bonded after exchanging a few subpar ice-breakers and kept meeting regularly thereafter to re-enact this iconic moment. Over time, the casual re-enactment gradually turned into a regulated sport. The “Weird Pies” team took the world by storm, Pipo, Leo and Giuseppe became household names, and the rest is “tennistory” as they often joked.
