A Brief History of Art at the Olympics, From Nazi Propaganda to the Black Power Salute
In the days before the Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony, a giant head emerged, floating over the city. Entitled “Masayume” (which means “a dream come true” in Japanese), this oversized balloon by artist collective Me (“eyes”), was part of the Tokyo Tokyo Festival, as an arts response to the Olympic Games.
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Art has long accompanied the arrival of the Olympics in a city. Budgets might vary, but the Games are the largest event out there. Local organizations and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) all seek to capitalize on the attention the Games garner by generating extracurricular cultural moments that echo the athletic accomplishments in the stadiums.
From Leni Riefenstahl’s film, Olympia, at the 1936 Berlin Games, to “Speed Skater,” Andy Warhol’s print for Sarajevo 1984, artists have contributed to modern Olympic narratives in iconic ways. The purpose of these interventions, not to mention their desired audience, has varied considerably.
CONTROVERSY AND POLITICAL STATEMENT
Between 1912 and 1948, official Olympic art competitions accompanied the Games. Artists, sculptors, and architects competed for gold, silver, and bronze medals, with winning entries including designs for stadiums and future official Olympic medals.
The most influential artistic intervention from this period, however, was delivered out of competition. With Olympia, Riefenstahl shaped the narrative of Berlin 1936 and made a lasting mark on filmmaking worldwide. Debate continues on whether the film is a piece of Nazi propaganda or a universal celebration of sport aesthetics.
The Mexico 1968 Games also resulted in multiple lasting narratives, infused with the political upheavals of the era. The fabled Black Power salute photograph—featuring African-American sprinters and Olympic medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the podium, each raising a black-gloved fist during the U.S. national anthem—is doubtless the enduring legacy of that edition.
Those Olympics left other lasting traces. In a bid to visually integrate sculpture and architecture with the Olympic Village, architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, the president of the Olympics organizing committee, and German sculptor Mathias Goeritz conceived the “Route of Friendship.”
A meander of 19 monumental sculptures (by international artists, including Alexander Calder) installed along southern Mexico City’s Beltway, it was a first for government-sponsored public art in Mexico, being both abstract and fully integrated into urban planning.
The official cultural program of the 1968 Mexico Games is seen as the most ambitious in history. It positioned the nation as a world-leading art and culture hub, from graphic design and advertising to the performing and visual arts. And it set the example for how the Games could showcase culture—not just as heritage, but also of equal contemporary value as the Olympic sports themselves.
HOST STAR
At the Barcelona 1992 Summer Games, the host city became the star, the athletes’ equal. The public art program effectively rebranded Barcelona as the cultural tourism hub we know today. There was art on the street (by luminaries, including Ellsworth Kelly and Antoni Tàpies) and on rediscovered beaches (Rebecca Horn), with an indelible logo riffing on Joan Miró’s paintings, the city’s most famous son.
By the time the London 2012 Games came round, expectations of what Olympic art programs could do for a country had grown exponentially. The ambitious Cultural Olympiad saw events and exhibitions nationwide bring art to unusual spaces, with young people at the helm.
There was the One Extraordinary Day dance extravaganza, wherein aerial performers battled gravity on London’s signature structures, from the Millennium Bridge to the London Eye. And the eye-catching responses to heritage locations, from Jeremy Deller’s inflatable Stonehenge to interactive light displays along Hadrian’s Wall. Meanwhile, ArcelorMittal Orbit, a tower designed by British sculptor Anish Kapoor and engineer Cecil Balmond, remains London 2012’s most visible and most controversial symbol.
The value of these interventions have been discussed in an extensive evaluation program—the first time the impact of art and culture at an Olympic Games has been documented in such detail.
THE FUTURE
Tokyo 2020’s official cultural program, the Nippon Festival, has not been as visible and meaningful to international audiences as the organizing committee might have liked. The local authority and arts council have, however, been savvy in positioning the Tokyo Tokyo Festival as a full-blown art world event. Of 2,436 public proposals, 13 large-scale artworks were commissioned, including that giant inflatable and a robotic Zen garden.
Further, the IOC has, for the first time, presented its own take on how culture meets sport with the inaugural Olympic Agora. The purpose of this new space has been to present public art commissions—including a permanent installation, titled “The Audience” by French artist Xavier Veilhan—and major exhibitions that tell the story of the Games and the Olympic Movement.
The Agora, thus, represents a position statement for the IOC rather than the host city. It remains to be seen whether Veilhan’s piece will gain credibility as an Olympic art landmark, whether it can impress savvy art audiences or tell future tourists enough about Tokyo as an Olympic city. For residents and Olympic fans alike, however, it will surely become a symbol of what it took to host these historic Games in the middle of a pandemic.