From the ancient Greek poet Lysippos’s Apoxyomenos to Thomas Eakins’s The Wrestler, sports have been a subject of art since ancient times.
This proud tradition of aesthetic athletics is now on display in “The Art of the Olympics,” a new exhibition organized by Gagosian and the Olympic Museum.
According to Yasmin Meichtry, vice president of the Olympic Culture and Heritage Foundation, this fusion of body and art dates back to Baron Pierre de Coubertin, commonly known as the “father of the modern Olympic Games.”
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“Coubertin’s vision for the Olympics was not just about sport, but a world philosophy that combined art, sports and education,” Meichtry explained in a recent interview with Gagosian Quarterly. “For him, humans not only needed sport for their physical health, but also the arts for their mental health and development.”
The works on display in “Olympic Art” reflect the diversity of the Olympics themselves, with 33 sports taking place this year. Dadaist Man Ray’s whimsical soccer-ball sculpture “Nocturne” is contrasted with Andreas Gursky’s panoramic aerial photograph “Amsterdam, Arena I.” Duane Hanson’s polychrome bronze sculpture
Bodybuilders reflect the ideal masculine physique of “apoxyomenos.”
Avant-garde darling Christo will not only be unveiling drawings of his monumental sculpture, “Running Fence,” but he will also be collaborating with this year’s Olympics, donating some of the Arc de Triomphe’s “Wrapped” fabric to be reused in the Olympic tents. (For those unfamiliar with Christo’s work, he famously covered the iconic Paris landmark in a silver-blue polypropylene fabric.)
For Mike Tree, the talents of art world superstars like Keith Haring and Andy Warhol, whose works are featured in the exhibition, overlap with those of people like Tom Daley and Britney Griner.
“Our mission as the museum’s cultural heritage department is to further integrate culture and sport. It is also the role of each organizing committee to build a Cultural Olympiad around a Sports Olympiad. In Paris, we are seeing incredible vitality in this effort.”
