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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproduction Further reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. THE OLYMPIC GAMES' CULTURAL OLYMPIAD:
IDENTITY AND MANAGEMENT
by
Debra J. Good
submitted to the
Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences
of American University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree
of Master of Arts
Performing Art:
Chair afren Chandler
Valerie Morris
Jinmfer RadW name
Dean o f the College ^ /?ff Date 1998
American University
Washington, D.C. 20016. iamm» vmsmmv mam taoi
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Copyright 1999 by Good, Debra J.
All rights reserved.
UMI Microform 1396334 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved.
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UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103
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Michael, Alex and Harry Stutchbury
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE OLYMPIC GAMES' CULTURAL OLYMPIAD:
IDENTITY AND MANAGEMENT
By
Debra J. Good
ABSTRACT
This thesis examines the relationship between the identity, growth and
development, and the management of the modem Olympic Games' Cultural
Olympiad. Since the fine arts competitions first appeared at the modem Olympic
Games in Stockholm in 1912, National Organizing Committees have struggled to
appreciate or understand the role and significance of the cultural games and have
either been unwilling or uncertain of how to integrate the arts with the sporting
games. Despite the size, budget, success and national importance of recent Cultural
Olympiads, it is one of the least known o f international art festivals among both art
world professionals and the general public.
The thesis will analyze information collected mostly from original
sources including interviews, International Olympic Committee minutes, IOC
Cultural Committee minutes, Olympic Bulletin articles, Pierre de Coubertin's
Memoirs, National Olympic Committee reports, research papers presented to the
International Olympic Academy and newspaper articles.
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE
On June 23, the re-establishment of the International Olympic Games was proclaimed through the initiative of Pierre de Coubertin. Consequently the first modem Olympics were gloriously celebrated in the restored stadium at Athens in April 1896, for all the people of the world, in the reign of His Majesty George I, King of Greece.
Baron Pierre de Fredy de Coubertin, founding father of the modem Olympics, is
buried in the Bois de Vaux cemetery in Lausanne, Switzerland. But, in testimony to
his commitment to the revival and philosophy of the modem games and at his own
request, Coubertin's heart is buried at the site of the ancient Games in Olympia,
Greece, the ultimate romantic gesture from a man who dedicated his life's work to
Olympism. The message above is inscribed on the Olympia monument.
m
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following:
Karen Chandler, Valerie Morris and Jennifer Radboume for their encouragement and always detailed analysis and comments
Ruth Perrenoud and staff of the Olympic Study Center in Lausanne for their time, support and assistance.
Jeffrey Babcock, Robert Fitzpatrick, Craig Hassall and Jonah Jones.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ii
PREFACE iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv
ABBREVIATIONS vi
CHAPTER
1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. THE ORIGINS AND RATIONALE FOR INCLUDING ART 9
3. THE FINE ARTS COMPETITIONS: IDENTIFYING THE ISSUES 17
4. THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE 35
5. THE SHIFT FROM EXHIBITIONS TO FESTIVALS 41
6. THE CULTURAL OLYMPIAD: A RELINQUISHED IDENTITY 51
7. CONCLUSION 61
APPENDIX A 70
APPENDIX B 71
BIBLIOGRAPHY 72
v
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ACOG Atlanta Committee for Organizing the Olympic Games
CO Cultural Olympiad Has been broadly used from 1952 onwards. Olympiad specifically refers to the four-year period between the games.
IF International Federation
IOA International Olympic Academy
IOC International Olympic Committee
NOC National Organizing Committee
OAF Olympic Arts Festival and Cultural Olympiad have been used interchangeably by the host organizing committees. Olympic Arts Festival has become more common in the latter part of the 20th Century.
SOCOG Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games
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INTRODUCTION
To place the IOC’s role from the outset far above that of the simple sports groups.
Coubertin, Olympic Memoirs1
The International Olympic Committee’s role was determined to be “far
above that of the simple sport groups” because, for Pierre de Coubertin, Olympism
was not just about sports, it was about a spiritual way of life, embracing the classical
Greek ideal of, in his now oft quoted words - “the marriage of mind and muscle.”2
Coubertin’s educational experience was the impetus behind his pursuit o f a revival of
the Olympic Games in two main ways. At the college Saint-Ignace (Saint Ignatius
School) in Paris he excelled at his studies, reportedly spending as much as 11 hours a
day on Greek, Latin, history and mathematics.3 But to his disappointment physical
exercise was not a part of the official curriculum.
As an adult, Coubertin became an amateur athlete who believed sports
should be integral to any education. He was an uncharacteristic aristocrat, an
1 Pierre de Coubertin, Olympic Memoirs. (International Olympic Committee, 1979), 3.
2 Ibid., 49.
3 Davida Kristy, Coubertin's Olympics: How the Games Began. (Lemer Publications Company, Minneapolis, 1995), 15. 1
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Anglophile choosing a career in pedagogy while continuing to pursue his interest in
amateur sports. His pedagogical beliefs had been influenced by a number of sources
including eurthymia - the educational philosophy that promoted balance in the
development of mind and body; contemporary English and American educational
practices; the French philosopher Hippolyte Taine and the Reverend Arnold - the
headmaster of England’s Rubgy College.4 For Coubertin the Ancient Games were
the perfect model for bringing into practice his pedagogical ideals.
He wrote that
In order to make sport nationally popular, I had to make it international, because, in France, foreign competition is the only effective and enduring stimulus. It was therefore necessary to organize cooperation between our young friends of sport and those of other nations who had done physical education before us in the past.5
Coubertin had always intended for art to be an integral part of the modem
Olympic Games, but, for various reasons, he waited until after three Olympic
festivals before attempting to introduce culture into the Games. He expected the 1900
and 1904 Games to include a cultural program but last minute changes to the location
of the host cities saw the cultural plans excluded. Although disappointed, Coubertin
stressed that “the short stages method” had always seemed the best method for any
4 Dr. Henri Pouret,The Men who Influenced Coubertin's Thought, Report of the Thirteenth Session nf the International Olympic Academy at Olympia. (Athens, IOC, 1973), 81.
5 Quoted in Professor L. Diem with Mr. Otto Szymiczek,The Ideas and Ideology o f Pierre de Coubertin, Report of the Thirteenth Session of the International Olympic Academy at Olvmpia. (Athens, IOC, 1973), 105.
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large-scale undertaking.6 Being both pragmatic and determined, Coubertin preferred
to wait and ensure that the cultural component of the games was well planned out and
generally supported.7 At the Consultative Conference of Arts, Letters and Sport, held
in Paris during the Spring of 1906, Coubertin finally managed to formally introduce
cultural games.
The 1906 Conference had been convened to examine how best to include
art in the modem sporting games. Although Coubertin’s proposal for a muses
pentathlon (competitions in five areas of the arts) had been accepted, he was not
wholly satisfied with the results. Attendance at the conference was low, and
delegates were mainly English and French with very few Italians and Swiss. As
Coubertin noted in his memoirs, no one in attendance was highly renowned in the
European cultural community.8 But he ranked the results of this conference as second
in importance only to the original 1894 conference which led to the start o f the
modem Olympics in 1896.
Coubertin felt the process of a conference necessary for a successful
outcome, writing that: “The IOC would have made itself ridiculous if it had attempted
to create contests of this kind right away, on its own. Invited to do so by a competent
group composed of members of high repute, the IOC was well and truly supported in
6 Geofiroy de Navacelle,Comments on the Olympic Memoirs, Olympic Memoirs. (IOC, 1979), 3.
7 Coubertin, 52.
8 Ibid.
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the eyes of the public.”9 Conference participants ultimately recommended
Coubertin's proposal for the inclusion of arts competitions in painting, architecture,
music, sculpture and poetry. These competitions were to be known as The Muses’
Pentathlon.10 Research finds very little is explained of how Coubertin actually
developed the proposal presented at the conference.
Coubertin wrote that although the public were generally “full of good
will... they were unable to comprehend my idea”11 of the Olympics. From the outset,
the competitions, held for the first time in Stockholm at the 1912 Games and at every
subsequent Games up to the 1948 London Games, were beset with problems. And,
after a protracted debate over the future of the arts competitions which began at the
IOC’s 1949 annual meeting in Rome the competitions were replaced by exhibitions in
1953. Since the termination of the arts competitions, the gap between the world of
sport and that of the arts in the Olympics has continued to increase.12 It is still a topic
of particular concern for the current IOC’s Cultural Commission.
Over the years, the Cultural Olympiad’s role has been discredited as little
more than entertainment for IOC executive members and their partners.13 Remaining
9 Ibid.
10 Miss Fani Kakridi, Reintroduction o f Art Competitions at the Olympic Games: A Short Historical Survey: The Muses' Pentathlon, Olympic Review No 223/223, Cultural Commission (Lausanne, April- May 1986.)
11 Coubertin, 6.
12 Proces-Verbal de la Reunion de la Commission Culturelle. Barcelone 1992, 11.
13 Bert Roughton Jr.,Cultural Olympiad; ToACOG, cultural aspect o f Games worth very The little, Atlanta Journal and Constitution. December 8, 1995.
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wedged between an indifferent sporting world and an elite art world, its original role
in the Olympics is now lost to a displaced history fraught with misinformation. A
renewed profile of the Olympics since the 1984 Los Angeles Games has increased the
competition between countries for the right to stage the Games, and the host cities are
now spending millions on the Cultural Olympiad. With its budget peaking at
US$59million in 1988 at Barcelona, the Olympic Games’ Cultural Olympiad budget
compares to well known international arts festivals such as Spoleto, Edinburgh and
Adelaide. It is associated with the world’s single most recognized symbol - the
Olympic Rings - and the world’s largest sporting event. In the sporting context, the
Olympic trademark now generates hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing rights
by large multinational corporations.14
After being approached for the position of director of the 1984 Los
Angeles Cultural Olympiad, Robert Fitzpatrick was quoted as saying “that if a
culturally aware person such as myself did hot know that the Olympic Games had a
cultural component, how aware would other people be? And how receptive?
Wouldn’t the artistic program still be overshadowed by the sports?” He says this was
“...not a good environment” in which to produce an arts festival.15
From an arts management perspective, the Cultural Olympiad is a unique
phenomenon. Unlike other international art festivals it is held in a different city and
14 Empowering the Olympic Movement: A Look at the Business Dynamics Behind the Olympics, reprinted from the 1996 Fortune 500 Issue.
15 Susanna Halpert Levitt, The 1984 Olympic Arts Festival: Theatre. (1990) 47.
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organized by a different managerial team each time. And, until 1992, when
Barcelona held a series of four annual arts festivals covering the period of the
Olympiad, its format has continually varied. Unlike other art festivals, its survival
does not depend on box office receipts. And, for now, the IOC Charter assures that
the Olympiad will be part of the Summer and Winter Olympics every two years.
However, despite the Cultural Olympiad’s substantial financial backing and
association with the most recognized symbol in the world, it has not raised its
international public profile.
The hypothesis of this study is fhat, despite the number, quality, range
and national cultural significance of the programs at recent festivals, the modem
Olympic Games’ Cultural Olympiad has remained one of the least known of
international arts festivals among both art world professionals and the general public.
The thesis analyzes the relationship between the identity and the management of the
Cultural Olympiad and the reasons for its lost history.
The first section briefly examines the social, economic and political
forces which, in conjunction with a classical education, were the impetus for
Coubertin’s efforts to reintroduce the Olympic Games. It also discusses Coubertin’s
reasons for including the arts in the sporting festival and compares the principles
behind the role of the arts in ancient Greece with the Modem Games’ competitions.
The second section looks at the problems associated with the first attempts to
introduce the fine arts competitions and the impact this had on consequent
competitions. It also analyzes the personalities, arguments and process by which the
competitions were ultimately replaced with “exhibitions.” The third section
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documents the IOC’s Cultural Commission’s minutes which discuss the problem of
how best to make the public aware of the role of culture in the Games and to integrate
the sporting and cultural festivals. It will detail contemporary approaches and
attitudes towards festivals generally and examine, as far as possible, the marketing
approach taken by each of the host cities in the context o f contemporary arts
marketing principles. The fourth section then analyzes the identity of the Cultural
Olympiad as presented in a number of books, newspaper and magazine reports.
The fine arts competitions and subsequent Cultural Olympiad came to life
in a complex socio-economic environment. Influenced by ancient myths and ideals
and the realities of tum-of-the-century Europe, the cultural games cannot be
appreciated without also discussing to what extent the dominant attitudes, beliefs and
philosophies defined them. In the late twentieth century Coubertin’s vision has been
transformed by the complexities of our current socio-economic environment.
Globalization, the commercialization of both sport and culture, and the
communications revolution have played essential roles in determining how the
Olympic Games profile has soared.
Many studies have focussed on the philosophical and theoretical
relationship between art and sport including Jean Durry’sThe Fine Arts and the
Olympic Games, andSports Olympism and 'the Fine Arts; Donald W. MastersonThe
Contribution o f the Fine Arts to the Olympic Movement; The Modem Olympic Games
and the Arts: and Dr. Henri PouretConvergencies and Divergencies o f the Destiny o f
the Athlete and the Artist; Is Sport an andArt The Contemporary Olympic Games and
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the Arts. Extensive research has revealed there has been no published study of the
historical evolution of the arts competitions and the identity of the Cultural Olympiad.
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THE ORIGINS AND RATIONALE FOR INCLUDING ART
I have already repeated so often that I am a trifle ashamed of doing so once again, but so many people still do not seem to have understood - that the Olympic Games are not just ordinary world championships but a four-yearly festival of universal youth, “the spring of mankind”, a festival of supreme efforts, multiple ambitions and all forms of youthful activity celebrated by each generation as it arrives on the threshold of life. It was no mere matter of chance that in ancient times writers and artists gathered together at Olympia to celebrate the Games, thus creating the inestimable prestige the Games have enjoyed for so long. Wishing to revive not so much the form but the very principle of this millennial institution, because I felt it would give my country and mankind as a whole the educational stimulus they needed, I had to try and restore the powerful buttresses that had supported it in the past: the intellectual buttress, the moral buttress and, to a certain extent, the religious.
Pierre de Coubertin, Olympic Memoirs16
Much has been written about the man who has been credited with re
creating the Ancient Olympic Games, French Baron Pierre de Fredy de Coubertin, the
founding father of the Modem Olympic Games. He was an uncharacteristic
aristocrat, rejecting the institutionalized aristocratic military career for that o f a
pedagogue and amateur athlete. He was an Anglophile, which among tum-of-the-
century French aristocrats was considered heresy. Prompted by a dissatisfaction with
his Jesuit education and French educational policies, Coubertin based his pedagogical
research for the French Government on English and American educational
institutions. From his late teens Coubertin made a number of visits to the best of
English and American public schools and universities including Rugby and Harvard.
16 Coubertin, 49.
9
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From these visits, Coubertin built a widespread network of influential people who
were eventually instrumental in what was to later become his life’s project - the re-
introduction o f the Olympic Games.
Art and sport may seem an odd mix. But their combination was an
essential component of Coubertin’s original vision of Olympism which to this day is
etched in the IOC’s charter of “fundamental principles.” “Olympism is a philosophy
o f life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and
mind....Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way
of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and
respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.”17
Richard Mandell writes in The First Modem Olympics that Renaissance
intellectuals developed their ideas for “an ideal education that, like the Greeks’,
integrated training for the mind and training for the body.” 18 He states it was
Vittorino da Feltre, Guarino da Verona, Alberti, Pico della Mirandola, and others [who] inspired later pedagogues [including John Locke and Jean Rousseau] all over Europe to include plans for physical education in their writings.19
According to Mandell, it was these writers who “in turn inspired the reformers,
philanthropists, and nationalists who established programs for physical training in
17 Olympic Charter in force as from 15 June 1995, 10.
18 Richard Mandell, The First Modem Olympics. (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1976), 27.
19 Ibid., 32.
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many education systems in Europe in the nineteenth century.”20
Mandell also points out that nineteenth-century classical scholars were
familiar with the history of Olympia and its festivals. He writes “.. .the Olympic
Games were never forgotten. The prestige of the Greeks for whom the ancient
Games were staged increased in modem times owing to the value placed on an
education based on the classics.”21
By the age of 17, Coubertin questioned the fundamental ideas behind his
classical education. It was around this time that he discovered the works of French
philosopher Hippolyte Taine. Taine was a prolific writer and author of Des Notes du
T Aneleterre.which argued “Adolesence in France is spent under an artificial cover.”22
It was through Taine’s works that Coubertin discovered Thomas Hughes’ novel, Tom
Brown’s Schooldays, which featured the philosophy of the renowned principle Tom
Arnold at the English school, Rugby. Coubertin later referred to the school in his
memoirs as that “mecca of sports education.”23
Henri Pouret states that this novel based on the English public school run
by the world famous headmaster, the Reverend Arnold, “proved to Coubertin that
20 Ibid., 28.
21 Ibid., 36.
22 Quoted in Dr. Henri Pouret, The Men Who Influenced Coubertin's Thought, Report of Thirteenth Session of the International Olympic Academy at Olvmpia. (Athens: International Olympic Committee, 1973), 81.
23 Coubertin, 42.
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sports reinforced the moral aspects of education.”24 Influenced by his reading of
Thomas Hughes, Coubertin visited the school, Rugby, on his first visit to England in
1883. On this same visit, Coubertin first became interested in the Ancient Olympic
Games.25
The late nineteenth century was a time of rapid economic globalization,
driven by falling transport and communications costs due to the spread of industrial
age inventions such as the railroad. This sparked an internationalization of commerce
and culture reflected in multilateral postal and copyright agreements and an interest in
world fairs. European governments did not consider a broad-based public education
system as necessary until after 1871 when the demands for a more educated
population grew with the need for more specialized professions such as doctors and
engineers.26
Henry Pouret wrote: “The future Reviver of the Games discovered that
the field was clear for the introduction of sports, at a time when classical education
was riddled and paralyzed by a rigid framework.”27 Coubertin formally began his
studies on the theory of education at the Free School for Political Science in Paris,
finding numerous works supporting his ideas. Referring to his Jesuit education, he
24 Dr. Henri Pouret, 82.
25 Davida Kristy, Coubertin's Olympics: How the Games Began. (Lemer Publications Company, Minneapolis, 1995), 21.
26 David Thomson, Europe since Napoleon. (Alfred A Knopf New York, 1967), 335.
27 Dr. Henri Pouret, 82.
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wrote “An adolescent needs physical exercise: it is against nature to force him to be
all brain.”28 While working for the Ministry of Public Instruction his research
championed fewer hours in the classroom and more time for athletics and games. But
the absence of a physical education in the French education system at the time meant
there was a serious lack of facilities for such activities.
In 1889, the Ministry sent Coubertin to North America to research the
educational methodology of its high schools and colleges. Ultimately, the aggregate
impact of his classical education and many trips away inspired Coubertin with the
idea for an international athletic competition modelled on the Ancient Games. The
trips served a double purpose. Coubertin’s international university contacts proved
instrumental in his attempts to revive the Games. Coubertin wrote in his Olympic
Memoirs
...not all my colleagues seemed to understand my persistent wish to associate the university world in the Olympic revival. In America where, as I have already said, the universities dominated athletics at the time, this association had already been achieved.29
For Coubertin, the universities and colleges were an important source of Olympic
competitors and support.
From the beginning Coubertin was anxious for the Games to include
some form of pomp and ceremony. Both Chicago and Rome had prepared detailed
arts programs for their respective games but, for different reasons, the Games had
28 Pierre de Coubertin, quoted in J. MacAloon, This Great Symbol: Pierre de Coubertin and the Origins of the Modem Olympic Games. (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1981), 55.
29 Ibid.,42.
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been shifted from Chicago to St. Louis in 1904 and from Rome to London in 1908.
The new host cities did not plan arts programs at all. For Coubertin this was a
disappointing blow. Anxious that the cultural program might be continually
postponed, he finally sought to include the arts in the official IOC Charter in May of
1906.
The 1906 Advisory Conference had two objectives: first, “to come and
study to what extent and in what way art and literature could be included in the
celebration of the modem Olympiads”30 and second, how best to integrate the arts
with sport. Coubertin wanted art to “weaken the specialised and technical character
of sports”31 and to embellish the shape of the Olympic festival. He wrote “sport can
bring joy only in a festive dress.”32
Coubertin had a pragmatic character. His interest in the Ancient Games
was not restricted to an historical appreciation but also in their value as a model for
the Modem Games. Consequently a number of aspects of the Modem Games on an
academic level in particular did not strictly adhere to ancient practices. For example
there had been debate over whether the Ancient Games actually held arts
competitions. English Olympic Scholar Donald W. Masterson argues “it would be a
mistake to believe that competitions in art were organized like the athletics. This was
30 Ibid., 50.
31 Coubertin. Quoted in 100 years of Olympic Congresses 1894-1994: Historv-Qbiectives- Achievements. (Lausanne, IOC, 1994), 70.
32 Ibid., 70.
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not the case at Olympia although it was true of the games at Delphi where contests in
the Muses were the principal feature of the festival.”33 Other festival sites are
believed to only have had competitions for flute players accompanying the sport
events.
Other academic scholars have acknowledged the variations in form and
principle between the Ancient and Modem Games, including David Young, whose
book The Olympic Mvth of Greek Amateur Athletics disputes that Ancient Greek
competitors were amateurs at all. This point is particularly relevant in the history of
the role of the arts in the games, given that, as will be detailed below, it was
amateurism that destroyed the art competitions. But, for Coubertin, the Greek scholar
embracing the model of the Ancient Games dovetailed with his fundamental objective
of educational reform: a reform that was ultimately more important than reviving the
Ancient Games in their exact form.
Throughout Olympic history, the ideological debate over amateurism
emerged repeatedly. Coubertin declared his reasons for backing amateurism even
though he was not theoretically committed to it, writing:
Now that I have reached - and even passed - the age when one can practice one’s heresies and even proclaim them freely, I no longer have any hesitation in owning to this point of view. However, for want o f a better solution, I agreed that one had to accept certain rules, set up certain more or less fictitous barriers, and I did everything I could to help. The English, particularly, felt very strongly about the whole
33 Donald W. Masterson, The Contribution o f the Fine Arts to the Olympic Games, Report o f the Thirteenth Session of the International Olympic Academy at Olvmpia. (Athens, IOC, 1973), 201.
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matter. It was a sign and a presage of strength for the IOC when they turned to it asking for help. 4
Athletic amateurism in England was used by the British upper-class to prohibit lower-
class professionals from competing with them. To compete for its own sake was
justified by the upper class as morally superior. David Young argues “when the
august name ‘Olympics’ failed to excite support, [Coubertin] turned to the fetish of
the aristocrats whom he regularly courted, the concept of amateurism.”35
34 Coubertin, 65.
35 David C. Young, The Olympic Myth of Greek Amateur Athletics. (Ares Publishers, Inc. Chicago, 1985), 60.
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THE MUSES’ PENTATHLON - FINE ARTS COMPETITIONS:
IDENTIFYING THE ISSUES
Only about sixty actually came, but those who attended the first day returned for the discussions on the following days and helped draft the plans. Jean Richepin, Bourgault-Ducoudray and Poilpot were enthusiastic about the whole idea. They had visions of processions, massed choirs, impressive tableaux and triumphal odes. Others backed the scheme somewhat less enthusiastically or simply weighed the difficulties. The main stumbling block can be summed up in a few words: fear of the classical. The young artists, who considered classical and stereotyped as synonymous, where obviously those in whom the success of the scheme would depend. Pierre de Coubertin, Olympic Memoirs36
Coubertin wrote in his Memoirs that the 1906 Conference
...fulfilled its main purpose by proposing that the IOC should create five contests of architecture, sculpture, music, painting and literature for original works directly inspired by sport, such contests henceforth to become an integral part of the celebration of each Olympiad.37
The first of the fine arts competitions was to be held at the 1908 London Games but
organizers argued there was insufficient time to include them. The Official Report of
the 1908 Games advised future organizing committees to announce the competitions
36 Ibid., 50.
37 Coubertin, 52. 17
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at least three years before the Games themselves.38 The first art competition was held
at the 1912 Stockholm Games after being organized by the IOC itself. Sweden’s
Organizing Committee had resolved not to host the competitions because its Artists’
Association had decided that both an art competition and an exhibition were too
difficult to host. The Stockholm art competitions awarded Italy two gold medals and
USA, Switzerland and Germany one each. Of the seven arts competitions held
between 1912 and 1948, and the 66 different contests, a total o f 145 medals - 45
Gold, 52 Silver and 48 Bronze - were awarded. A total of 22 were withheld on the
grounds the standard of entries were not meritorious.39
The organization of each of the arts competitions differed with every
Olympic Game. For example, between 1928 and 1948, bas-reliefs and medals were
added to the sculpture category while plaquettes were added in 1936. In 1928, the
painting contests were divided into three categories including oil paintings of
classical composition, watercolours and drawings and graphic work.40 In 1920 and
1924, literature held one category of competition but, in 1928, this was broken down
into three categories including lyric, dramatic and epic works.41
38 The Fourth Olympiad Official Report (London, 1908), 383.
39 Henri Pouret,The Contemporary Olympic Games and the Arts,Report of the Ninth Session of the International Olympic Academy at Qlvmaia. (Athens, IOC, 1969), This paper lists the details of the awards from which these figures are calculated. 74-82.
40 Ibid., 63.
41 Ibid., 65.
18
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At the 1932 Los Angeles Games 200 posters “placed in libraries, branch
libraries, universities, schools, hotels and other places where people congregated,
throughout the city of Los Angeles” encouraged a reported attendance of 384,000 to
an exhibition of finalists’ work.42 The Official Report of the 1932 Los Angeles
Games briefly mentions difficulty experienced hosting the art competitions but
identifies the Organizing Committee’s commitment to hosting the cultural games.43
Avery Brundage, then President of the American Olympic Committee (AOC),
reported that, although medals were awarded to contestants from 12 different nations
(at the time this was a record), “It is to be hoped that the Fine Arts
competitions...which have heretofore been overshadowed by the athletic events, will
attract more and more public interest.”44 As early as 1932, Brundage believed the
amateur requirement restricted the quality of the works entered.
In the AOC’s report, Brundage suggested that the organization of the
competitions45 should be broken down into committees for each branch of the arts.
As the General Director of the Fine Arts Competitions, Leila Mechlin wrote
regarding the Literature and Music Competitions: “In neither of these competitions
were there many American participants, due in all probability to lack of advance
42 The Games of the Xth Olympiad Los Angeles 1932 Official Report Xth Olympiads fnmmittpp (1933), 763.
43 Official Report of the Games of the Xth Olympiad. (1932), 749.
44 Report of President Avery Brundage, The American Olympic Committee Report offiam the w r>f thp Xth Olympiad Los Angeles. (California, 1932), 22.
45 Ibid., 22.
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notice.”46 Mechlin’s report suggested the competitions be announced “at least two
years in advance” and that organizers seek the co-operation of like partners (e.g.
music with the Curtis Institute or Julliard Foundation). Mechlin concluded that
would lead to a higher standard of entries as well as increased participation and
interest in the Olympic Games.47
The first task for Berlin in 1936 was to finalize the details of the arts
competitions. Invitations to participate were not sent out to the National Olympic
Committees until March 1935, one year in advance of the competitions.48 The final
report concluded that enrolments in the areas of literature and music were small, with
40 entries from 12 countries in literature and 33 musical compositions from nine
countries -
as in the case of former competitions in this field, it was again revealed that the sporting ideals have not achieved a sufficiently vital and artistic form in the fields of music and literature, and for this reason the participation in these contests was again below that in the plastic arts.49
Berlin’s report notes that:
Because of the slight interest which the general public had hitherto evidenced in the Olympic Art Competition and Exhibition, it was necessary to emphasize their cultural significance to the Olympic Games through numerous articles in the professional and daily publications as well as radio lectures.50
46 Leila Mechlin, Report of Vice-Chairman of American Olympic Fine Arts Committee, in Report of Games of Xth Olympiad. (1932), 131.
47 Ibid.. 131.
48 The Xlth Olympic Games Berlin 1936. Official Report Volume II. by Organizationskomitee Fur Die Xlth Olympiade Berlin 1936 E.V., (Published by Wilhelm Limpert, Berline, S.W. 68), 1111.
49 Ibid., 1113.
50 Ibid., 1127.
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The report concluded that:
An effective publicity campaign for the exhibition carried on by means of posters, radio broadcasts and press reports attracted an unusual number of visitors to the Olympic Art Exhibition in spite of the wealth of sporting competitions and social events which were in progress during the same period. Over 70,000 persons visited the Exhibition during the four weeks it was in existence.51
These figures pale in comparison to the reported attendance at the Los Angeles
Games. Berlin claimed 70,000, however, as unusually high.
In the official report of the 1948 Games, the British Fine Arts Committee
made a number of recommendations intended for use as a guide to organizing future
competitions. The recommendations included reducing the number of arts categories.
They concluded that interest in the exhibitions would be greater if they were “more
closely linked up with the Games themselves” and if a more intensive press campaign
had been organized.52 These same recommendations were suggested by a number of
organizing committees throughout the history of the arts competitions.
At Rome in 1949 the executive committee of the IOC decided “since Art
competition contestants are practically all professionals, Olympic medals should not
be awarded. This event should be in the nature of an exhibition.”53 Details of this
decision and who introduced the motion are not documented. In January o f 1951,
51 Ibid.
52 The Official Report of the Organizing Committee for the XTV Olympiad. (London 1948), 198.
53 Proces-Verbal De La 43eme Session Du Comite International Olvnroiane. (Rome 21-27 Avril 1949), 5.
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Greek IOC executive member Angelo Bolanaki argued for the reintroduction of the
arts competitions. He was asked to chair a committee on the topic.
He presented A Rapport sur les Concours d’art at the IOC’s Vienna
Session in May of 1951. Short and to the point, Bolanaki invoked the ideals of
Coubertin and claimed the “art exhibitions have competed with great success.”54
Bolanaki’s report did not attempt to explore the management issues that had been
listed in the official reports of past host cities. Bolanaki relied instead on Coubertin’s
ideological rationale, concluding
By a decision taken at the meeting in Rome in 1949, the motion was adopted to modify art competitions into art exhibitions, as it appears illogical that professionals should compete at such exhibitions and be awarded Olympic medals. In conclusion we propose that the Art Competitions should be re instated in the programme of the Olympic Games and that no consideration should be taken regarding the amateur or professional question as such categories do not exist in the Art competition, all participants being ARTISTS.55
His proposal was accepted at the 1951 Vienna session and the art competitions were
to continue.
The Official Report of the Organizing Committee for the Games of the
XVth Olympiad held in Helsinki in 1952 stated that the rules for the arts exhibition
had been approved in March of 1951. Although these rules were published in the
July 1951 issue of the Bulletin, entry forms were not mailed to the National Olympic
54Rapport sur les Concours d'art, Bulletin. Du Comite International Olympique, (1951), 34.
55 Ibid., 34.
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Committees until January 1952.56 The exhibition opened on 16 July 1952. The
official report claimed “5,000 persons in all visited the exhibition. Press criticism
was favourable.. .and the census of opinion was that the Art Exhibition of the XV
Olympic Games fulfilled its mission of bringing sport and art closer together.”57 But
IOC President Avery Brundage later described the exhibition as “anything but
successful.”58
The publication of Helsinki’s rules had precipitated a controversial
debate. After the 1951 decision in Vienna to reintroduce art competitions, Helsinki’s
Organizing Committee argued there was simply not enough time to hold them at the
1952 Games. In addition, a January 1952 edition of the IOC’s Bulletin presented two
opposing arguments in regard to the Helsinki art exhibition. The first from a group of
Swiss artists and the Swiss Olympic Committee objecting to art competitions being
replaced by “exhibitions” at the Helsinki Games. The second, from Helsinki, argued
against the continuation of arts competitions at the Olympic Games.
The Swiss report attacked Helsinki’s rules, arguing that the only change
that had been made was to replace the word “competition” with “exhibition.” The
Swiss Group also argued that certain definitions and practices “appeared
inadmissable.” And it claimed that
56 The Official Report of The Organizing Committee for the Games of the XVth Olympiad. (Helsinki, 1952), 110.
57 Ibid., 110.
58 Circular Letter to IOC Members on Fine Arts Competition from Avery Brundage, 14 July 1953.
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Compared to the London Exhibition, the Fine Arts have lost some of their importance and will only play a minor part in the future Games. It is very unlikely that the quality of the works to be submitted will be better, nor is it probable that the participation of the exhibiting countries will prove more important and be of a higher standard than in the past... .artists’ works should be placed once and for all on an equal footing with the athletic performances. The Art Exhibition must be prepared as carefully as all the other Olympic Events.59
The group claimed it was “ready to cling to the ideal set by de Coubertin.”60
An examination of Helsinki’s official report reveals that the Swiss group
was correct. The exhibition had been organized according to the same categories of
the competitions: architecture, painting and graphic arts, sculpture, literature and
music. The word “exhibition” had simply replaced “competition.” The Danish group
argued that the standard of the works entered in the arts competitions had been low in
comparison to the sporting competitions. It argued that all artists had to live by their
art and were therefore “professionals.” Denmark’s art organizations agreed “there
was no particular interest” in the arts competitions: first, because of the cost; second,
because spectators were primarily interested in the sporting games; third, because
artists were not interested in participating at the Games to be held in Helsingfors
because of the absence of prizes.
The Danish group concluded by questioning whether art should be
retained on the Olympic program at all.61 In the March 1952 edition of the Bulletin.
59About Art Competitions in the Olympic Games, Bulletin Du Comite International Olympique, 31, (Lausanne, 15 Janvier 1952), 21.
60 Ibid., 21.
61 Ibid., 22.
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Denmark’s representative Mr. P. Ingholt proposed the elimination of the art
competitions altogether. But the then IOC President, Sweden’s Mr. Sigfrid Edstrom,
appealed, saying, “It concerns a historical problem which Coubertin valued
enormously.” He asked the IOC to study the issue of art competitions.62 And a new
fine arts committee was formed. Before its conclusion could be presented, the IOC
had a new and very different President - the USA’s Avery Brundage.
The Italian National Olympic Committee submitted an “opinion” in
regard to the Art Competitions in the January 1952 edition of the Bulletin. Italy
argued art competitions should remain a part of the Olympic program because “they
show that Sport is more than a physical expression of Man: they prove that it is also a
spiritual movement.”63 Italy made the suggestion that there should be a reduction in
the number of medals awarded at the art competitions because preliminary trials were
difficult for national committees to organize.
In July of 1953, IOC President Avery Brundage issued a circular letter on
Fine Arts Competitions to IOC members identifying some of the issues and
reiterating his belief that artists could not be amateurs. The letter ultimately
influenced the outcome of a final vote held in 1954 at the Athens Session of the IOC
Executive. After presenting the findings of the IOC Committee inquiring into the
presence of the arts at the Olympic Games, France’s Mr. Armand Massard concluded
62 Bulletin. Comite International Olympique No. 32, (Mars 1952), 19.
63 The Opinion o f the Italian National Olympic Committee Regarding Art Competitions at the Olympic Games Bulletin Comite International Olympique No. 31. (Janvier 1952), 38.
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“the best solution would be to adopt the President’s proposal which, to his mind
[Massard’s], offers the fairest solution.”
Brundage’s emphasis on the strict adherence to the amateur ruling stood
out in his circular letter. The second sentence in the first paragraph states:
One can be practically sure that under present conditions the winners of Olympic Fine Art medals will do everything possible to capitalize on their victories professionally. This...is not beneficial to the Olympic Movement. Despite the study that has been devoted to the subject and the lengthy discussions, however, no satisfactory conclusions have been reached. In 1952 we tried exhibitions instead of competitions because we did not want to give Olympic medals which are reserved for amateurs, to professionals. The result was anything but successful and the rule now calls again for competitions.64
Brundage identified some of the problems and arguments the Fine Arts Competitions
had raised. While he fully supported Coubertin’s reasons for including the arts at the
Olympic Games, he also believed that: “From a practical point of view,... under
modern conditions, the difficulty of accomplishing this seems well nigh
insurmountable.”65 Brundage returned to Rule No. 7: “Only persons who are
amateurs within the definition laid down in these Rules may compete in the Olympic
Games.” He argued that arts competition rules requiring works that are restricted to
the subject of sport and produced in the preceding Olympiad limited participation.
He pointed out the difficulty of judging between literary genres in 25 different
languages, between Arabic folk songs and operas, and amongt the many varied
64 Brundage.
65 Ibid.
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painting schools, with judging taking place between “the classical to the most
extreme.”66
Despite his observations, Brundage’s letter focussed on the tension
between the amateur requirement and the quality of works submitted, writing: “I do
not approve of staging Fine Arts competitions or exhibitions unless they are of the
same high standard as the sport events.... if you examine the records you will find that
half the time the entries have been so mediocre that medals have not been awarded,
even by sympathetic judges.”67 This, however, was not the case. According to the
records of the competitions as published in Henri Pouret’s articleThe Contemporary
Olympic Games and the Arts, 22 out of a total of 167 medals were not awarded. The
majority of those not awarded came from the music and drama categories.
Brundage’s letter clearly advocated a shift to “special exhibitions,” which
“would insure higher standards, eliminate any possible commercialization, and
probably attract more general interest.”68 He concluded that, if the committee
decided to continue with Fine Arts competitions, a set of standard and detailed
regulations needed to be adopted for uniformity. To many Olympic supporters,
Brundage’s argument was simplistic. Allen Guttmann wrote that Brundage
did not even attempt to discuss the fact that professionalism is best defined not by whether or not one is paid but by whether or not the activity is one’s
66 Ibid.
67 Ibid.
68 Ibid.
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vocation....Such a definition unquestionably includes Shakespeare, Rembrandt, and Bach among the professionals - along with most Olympic athletes.
He concludes Brundage did not think the issue through.69
The ideologically dogmatic Angelo Bolanaki, vehement supporter of the
arts competitions and Coubertin’s Olympism, was not persuaded by Brundage’s
reasoning. Bolanaki was one of the main protagonists in the move to re-instate the
arts competitions, arguing that either the competitions should be re-introduced or the
presence of art at the Olympics should be done away with altogether.
Throughout his works, Germany’s Carl Diem repeatedly criticizes the
decision to terminate art competitions, writing: “The reason we often hear, that ‘it
would conflict with the amateur principle of the Games’, is too silly to be taken
seriously.”70 Diem claimed that “so far as I know Coubertin never raised the question
of the ‘professionalism’ of artists, probably regarding it as self-evident.”71
At the 1956 IOC meeting in Melbourne, Australia, Hungarian athlete, Dr.
Ferenc Mezo, was asked to submit an article to the Bulletin after he raised the issue of
“giving greater emphasis to the Fine Arts Program.” Mezo believed exhibitions
were no substitute for the competitions and put forward an alternative proposal to re
introduce the competitions. Mezo argued
69 Allen Guttmann, The Games Must Go On: Avery Brundage and the Olympic Movement (New York, 1984), 208.
70 Carl Diem, The Olympic Idea: Discourses and Essays. Edited by An der Deutschen Sportochscule Koln: (Carl-Diem Institut, 1970), 96.
71 Ibid., 12.
72 Extract of the minutes of the 52nd Session of the IOC Meeting, Melbourne, 1956,49.
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Let us confess, the inclusion o f the modern art contests in the Olympic program was not successful.... The reason was the inefficient propaganda of the Organizing Committees and the National Olympic Committees. The Competitors of the art contests and the Olympic spectators were strangers to each other, they seldom became members of the National Olympic teams.73
As if in testimony to Mezo’s article, Diem lamented the absence of “the
Muses” during his visit to the 1956 Games in Melbourne, writing: “...taking place as
they were among a somewhat prosaic race of people, the Melbourne Olympic Games
doubly and painfully lacked the charm of the Muses.”74 And, in his article The
Contribution of the Fine Arts to the Olympic Games. Masterson also commented on
the omission of a fine art exhibition in Melbourne, claiming it “elicited much critical
comment, but at subsequent Olympiads this mistake was not made.”75
Masterson does not elaborate on exactly where the “critical comment”
came from although the article regularly refers to Diem. But Melbourne’s Official
Report of the Organizing Committee for the Games states the Fine Arts Sub-
Committee was “originally formed in November, 1953.” The Arts Festival was
comprised of two sections - again very much along the lines of the arts competitions
- visual arts and literature, and music and drama. The Fine Arts committee published
“An attractive volume entitled The Arts Festival: A Guide to the F.xhibition with
Introductory Commentaries on the Arts in Australia.” Melbourne’s report concluded
73 Dr. Ferenc Mezo,New form o f the art competitions, Bulletin. (May 1956), 63.
74 Diem, 96.
75 D.W. Masterson, The Contribution of the Fine Arts to the Olympic Games. 208.
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“the change from a competition to a Festival was widely welcomed, since the Festival
provided a significant commentary on Australia's contribution to the Arts.”76
The official reports repeatedly point to the management problems
organizing committees encountered in hosting the arts competitions, particularly the
continually evolving regulations and the subsequent growth in categories. Another
problem was the timing of the advance notification and the date entry forms were
mailed out. Berlin’s 1936 official report states that: “A considerable period of time
was required... before the artists of the world could be convinced of the necessity and
the object of such a mission, or before they recognized the close connections between
art and sport clearly enough to find in sport a suitable inspiration for their creations
and artistic forms.”77 In 1908, the London Committee had suggested entry forms
should be sent out at least three years in advance of the competitions and, in 1932,
Mechlin suggested at least two years as a suitable period of time. Despite this, Berlin
sent out entry forms little more than 12 months in advance - but later reported a lack
of interest in the competitions by artists.78
Masterson’s extensive list of reasons given for the termination of the arts
competitions included criticism of the lack of publicity for the arts events. This point
was not even addressed by Brundage. Masterson also included the absence of an
76 The Official Report o f the Organizing Committee for the Games of the XVI Olympiad Melbourne 1956. (Melbourne, Australia. 1958), 196.
77 The Xlth Olympic Games Berlin Official Report, 1936 Official Report. Volume IT bv Organisationskomittee Fur Die XT Qlvmpiade (Berlin, 1936) E.V.,1106.
78 Ibid., 1111.
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international arts organization comparable to the sports’ international federations; the
unsuitability of sport as the sole artistic subject; the fact that few of the arts
competitors actually attended the Games; the mediocre quality of the entries; the fact
that the contests failed to attract the best of the art world; and that the artworks
themselves did not always satisfy the criteria of sports as the subject. At the core of
this particular issue is the recurring absence of a managerial awareness of the
Pentathlon’s raison d’etre. Then, as now, there is a sense of the cultural program’s
existence being part of the IOC’s Olympic package or franchise. Radboume and
Fraser point out that “the marketing plan defines the mission and goals of the arts
organisation.”79 If the “mission and goals” are unclear, what effect does this have on
the marketing?
Brundage’s 1954 circular letter did not address the management issues
that had been raised by others, in particular that the competitions had not been
“integrated” with the sporting events and that attendance was low because the public
and sporting competitors did not know about the arts competitions and exhibitions.
Even though the Art Commission enquiring into the role of the arts at the Olympics
found it difficult to meet as a committee, it concluded “the best solution would be to
adopt the President’s proposal which, ... offers the fairest solution. This exhibition
79 Jennifer Radboume and Margaret Fraser, Arts Management: A Practical Guide. (Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1996), 61.
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would represent the art of the country where it is being held, with the assistance of the
works o f other countries if required.”80
The issue of amateurism lurked behind the reasons given for the shift
from arts competitions to exhibitions. It became an ideological battle between the
role of amateurism and Coubertin’s own Olympic vision. Brundage’s solution was a
compromise. There is no evidence any of the committees considered the managerial
issues, or whether the failure of the arts competitions was attributable to its
management.
Consequently, the shift from competitions to exhibitions did not increase
awareness of the arts at the Olympic Games because the debate over whether to
continue with competitions or with exhibitions did not sufficiently study or analyze
the “management issues” repeatedly raised in the official reports. The IOC executive
was split between the issue of amateurism and a commitment to Coubertin’s ideal
Olympism. Ironically, the executive’s decision was ultimately based on amateurism
and its impact on the standard of entries. An examination of Coubertin’s memoirs
suggest that, had he still been at the helm of the executive, the competitions would
have stayed.
Today I can admit it; the question [of amateurism] never really bothered me. It had served as a screen to convene the Congress designed to revive the Olympic Games. Realising the importance attached to it in sports circles, I always showed the necessary enthusiasm, but it was an enthusiasm without real conviction. My own conception of sport has always been very different from that of a large number - perhaps the
80 Minutes of the 49th Session of the International Olympic Committee. (Athens, May 11-151111954), 14.
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majority of sportsmen. To me, sport was a religion with its church, dogmas, service...but above all a religious feeling, and it seemed to me as childish to make all this depend on whether an athlete had received a five franc coin as automatically to consider the parish verger an unbeliever because he received a salary for looking after the church.81
Germany’s Walter Umminger argued that the competitions “were
doomed from the beginning, because they were never integrated with the sports.”82
Hungary’s Mezo wrote that the art competitions were never more than ‘side issues’
that lacked publicity,83 and at a 1973 IOC Session, Masterson concluded, “Certainly,
only a very small percentage of the public at large seems to have known about these
events.”84
At the conclusion of the arts competitions in 1953, Coubertin’s
philosophy remained at the heart of the International Olympic movement’s rationale
for the continued inclusion of a cultural component in the Modem Olympic Games.
Avery Brundage, President of the IOC between 1952 and 1972, was largely
responsible for the termination of the arts competitions. His was a presidency
characterised by an unequivocal commitment to amateurism. In his circular letter,
Brundage coerced members of the IOC executive to vote with him on the point of
amateurism. In doing so he overlooked two essential points about Coubertin: first,
his diplomatic pragmatism and, second, his indifference to amateurism. In
81 Coubertin, 65.
82 Quoted in D.W. Masterson,The Contribution of the Fine Arts to the Olympic Movement, Report of the thirteenth Session of the International Olympic Academy at Olympia. (IOC, Athens, 1973), 205.
83 F. Mezo,The Arts in the Olympic Games, Sport in Society. A. Natan., ed., London 1958.
84 D.W. Masterson, 204.
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recognition of the strength of Coubertin’s philosophy, the Olympic Games continued
to contain an artistic or cultural component, however emasculated.
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THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE
The authority of last resort on any question concerning the Olympic Games rests with the IOC. The Olympic Charter, 1995
This is true of the rules and regulations as set out in the IOC’s charter.
But, once a host city has been chosen and has begun the preparations for the Games,
the IOC has limited capacity to intervene. Although the IOC has a continual
presence, and public compliments regarding the buildings and preparations are
symbolically important to the organizing committee, the national committee is not
told how to organize the Games. The IOC can influence the shape o f the Games by
making certain recommendations but beyond that it has effectively sold the rights.
During the 1950s the debate about how best to include the arts in the
Olympics was split down ideological lines. Focussing on the argument that the
standard of the arts competition entries was consistently mediocre due to the amateur
ruling, and that they simply were not “integrated with the sports” adequately enough
to prompt large-scale interest, the IOC executive’s debate was too limited in scope to
improve the identity of the Olympic arts competition. Ignoring the repeated
administrative or managerial recommendations made by the various organizing
committees secured, as the Swedish group argued, a change in name only. The actual
organization of the competitions and the exhibitions initially remained the same.
During the presidency of Avery Brundage, the IOC established a Cultural
Commission with the aim of examining how to promote the cultural program at the
35
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Games and to encourage the cultural projects of the national Olympic
committees. The IOC has acknowledged that the shift to exhibitions has not
increased public awareness and that it is still dissatisfied with the current relationship
between art and sport at the Games.
In what amounted to a public display of internal questioning, the 1961
IOC Bulletin published an unattributed, sarcastically toned article titled “Olympism
and Art,” which stated that little more than% 5 of the competing athletes visited the
art exhibition in Rome and questioned:
What is the good of organizing an Art Exhibition in connection with the Games (I refer again to the fact that the Art Exhibition in Rome was unique) if the young people it is intended for are not interested. I daresay it just happened because the responsible people (leaders of the foreign contingents) were not seemingly interested in art themselves! Evidently the fact to record a gain of six tenth of a second in the 100m between 1900 and 1960 means...Arts for some people!85
Such comments were indicative of an IOC uncertain of what to do with the
contradictory legacy of both Coubertin and Brundage.
In 1974, then chair of the Cultural Commission Mr. Reczek presented a
speech in which he claimed the “discontinuation of the art competitions has decreased
the interest of men of art in Olympic subjects in literature, painting and sculpture.”86
He argued the national organizing committees needed to become more acquainted
“with the actual conditions and recommendations of the IOC concerning the cultural
85Olympism and Art, Bulletin. Comite International Olympique, No 74,15 Mai 1961,31.
86 Mr. Reczek's speech at the Varna Olympic Congress, Annex 3, Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Cultural Commission. Vienna, 18 October 1974.
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program and should accept them in advance.”87 Reczek concluded the IOC needed to
“develop and enrich the cultural programs of the Olympic Games. In order to unify
its policy in this field, the IOC should submit to the organizing cities its list of
desiderata regarding the cultural program.”88 But in a letter presented at the same
meeting, Coubertin’s great-nephew Mr. G. Navacelle argued “.. .1 do not think we
should expect much attention from the national committees or federations to cultural
activities.”89
Immediately after his appointment as Chairman of the Cultural
Commission in 1995, China’s Mr. Zhenliang He wrote to members requesting they
“reflect on the mission of the IOC Cultural Commission and a way of promoting the
cultural activities of the Olympic movement in a more dynamic manner.”90 At his
first meeting in Lausanne in March 1995 it was generally accepted that the
“...cultural programs at the Olympic Games were too distant from sports activities”
and it was agreed that the “essential task of the Cultural Commission ...was to bring
the worlds of sport and culture closer together in order that they could come to know
and better understand each other.”91 In an interview for Olympic Magazine. Mr.
Zhenliang He stated, “I hope the Organizing Committees of the Olympic Games will
87 Ibid.
88 Ibid.
89 Annex 4, Minutes of the Meeting of the IOC Cultural Commission. Vienna 18 October 1974.
90 Proces-VerbalTN de la Reunion de la Commission Culturelle. Lausanne, 29 March 1995.
91 Ibid.
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duly accord a special attention not only to the opening and closing ceremonies, but
also to cultural programs during the Olympic Games.”92
In a recent interview for the Sydney Morning Herald. IOC President Juan
Antonio Samaranch commented that “what [he] would also like to find in the
Olympic Games is the very close union between sport and culture. We always say
there is a difference between sports and the Olympics. The Olympics is much more
than sport - it is sport and culture.”93
The IOC has briefly considered re-establishing art competitions on a
number of occasions. However, arguments against such a move still focus on the
reasons given in the past (in particular the standard of the works and interest in the
cultural Games) and ignore the development of an international cultural environment
which supports an increasing range of arts scholarships, awards and competitions.
The disposal of the amateur ruling could ensure a higher standard of entries today and
could attract a new kind of Olympic sponsor. So far little mention has been made of
developing, in conjunction with national organizing committees and sponsors, a more
sophisticated marketing plan incorporating the cultural. With few exceptions,
Olympic sponsors focus their marketing on the sporting Games and ignore the
potential increased exposure that could be gained from simultaneously associating
with and promoting the Olympic arts festivals.
92 Pedro Palacious, Zhenliang He: The Objective ofsport is the perfection o f body and, Olympic spirit Magazine. (Olympic Museum, IOC, No.6, June 1995), 20.
93 Glenda Korporaaf The Svdnev Morning Herald. 24 April, 1998.
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With the lack of active Olympic arts sponsors, the IOC clearly favours an
expanded cultural program. Mexico reported that “The IOC . ..not only unanimously
approved [its] program ..., but also gave Mexico a special vote of gratitude for
expanding the Cultural Program of the Olympic Games in such a significant
manner.”94 Mexico ran a 12-month national program. It is also reasonable to assume
the IOC favoured the four-year programs held in Barcelona and Atlanta. Sydney is
hosting four festivals, and Athens’ bid included plans for a four-year arts festival.
Mexico’s official report stated that:
The first inquiry made of cities petitioning the International Olympic Committee for the honor of being named host of the Olympic Games is: ‘What fine arts program do you propose?’ The priority given this question is indicative of the importance placed by the IOC on restoring the ...union of sports and culture 9
The Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) has also
repeatedly claimed that the cultural component of the bid was integral to Sydney’s
winning the rights to host the 2000 Games.
While some critics argue the IOC “makes a lot of noise” about the
position of the arts in the Olympics, they claim it is not truly concerned about doing
much to change the current situation.96 Cultural Commission minutes however reveal
the IOC is well aware that the role of the arts in the Olympic movement has not been
94 Volume 4 du rapport officiel. comolet Mexico 1968, 270.
95 Volume 4 du rapport officiel. complet Mexico 1968. Section 2: The Qrpaniyatinn 269.
96 These critics have asked toremain anonymous.
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adequately recognized. The minutes make regular reference to the desire for their
greater integration with the Games.
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THE SHIFT FROM EXHIBITIONS TO FESTIVALS
Whatever the reason may have been for the termination of the arts competitions the standard of the exhibitions has varied between the spectacular and inconsequential. The media have ignored them and the general public - even the competing athletes - have been unaware of this aspect of the Festival.
Donald W. Masterson, The Relationship of Art and Sport97
In his book, This Great Symbol. John MacAloon makes the point
“...Olympics are also modelled on the expositions [the World Fairs] of the early and
mid to late 1800’s which were considered symbolic of national achievement and pride
...where each exposition had become a rehearsal for the next.”98
Today, each Cultural Olympiad is put together by a different organizing
committee driven by national pride and the desire to be the best so far. But, without
an identity or historical context for a comparison of the events, the rhetoric of size is
repeatedly used to overwhelm and impress. While the 1952 and 1956 Cultural
Olympiads closely resembled the format of the arts competitions, the structure and
theme o f subsequent cultural programs have varied with each Olympiad and remained
abstracted from the sporting games as well as each other.
97 Donald W. Masterson,The Relationship o f Art and Sport: The Relevance o f Coubertin's Views Today, L'autualit de Pierre de Coubertin Report of the Symposium. Comite International Pierre de Coubertin, 18-20 March (1986), 278.
98 MacAloon, 132. 41
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. At each Olympiad, the exhibitions have varied in duration between one
month and four years. Melbourne’s 1956 exhibition ran for a little over one month;
Rome’s for six months; Mexico’s for 12 months, LA’s for 10 weeks and Barcelona
and Atlanta over the four-year period of the Olympiad. Themes at the Olympiads
have varied between a national and an international focus and they have been
organized directly by the host’s national organizing committee or by delegated
outside sub-committees. Barcelona’s Cultural Olympiad was organized by Olimpiada
Cultural S.A, a private company belonging to Barcelona’s organizing committee." In
1956 Melbourne formed “a sub-committee under the control of the Olympic Civic
Committee of the Melbourne City Council with Organizing Committee
representation. The Civic Committee created the additional Festival Sub-
Committee.”100 Mexico’s organizing committee established an internal Department
of Artistic and Cultural Activities soon after it was announced as the 1968 host
city.101
Robert Fitzgerald reported of the 1984 Cultural Olympiad:
From intimate theatres accommodating 200 for Belgium’s Radeis International to the Hollywood Bowl with seats for more than 17,500 for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Salute to the Olympics Gala Concert, scale and type of facility varied, and with them the nature of the festival-going experience. Some
99 The means; Objectives, resources and venues, Official Report of the Games of the XXV Olympiad. Volume II, Barcelona 1992.
100 The Official Report of the Organising Committee for the Games of the XVI Olympiad. Melbourne 1956, 194.
101 Concemant I'Olympiade culturelle voir aussi: Du Rapport Officiel. Volume 4, 1968, 270.
42
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galleries welcomed a few hundred visitors a day: freeway murals were seen by hundreds of thousands of motorists in the same time span.102
He also wrote:
For the 1,500 artists and for audiences that topped 1,275,000 such a festival created an atmosphere that encouraged participation. An estimated 790,000 spectators viewed the Festival’s 24 visual art exhibitions, 306,000 attended 393 performances of music, dance and theatre, and 180,000 participated in various specialized festivals and film presentations.103
Barcelona, reported the Olympic Festival o f the Arts in 1992, produced
some 200 shows and more than 500 performances in theatre, dance, music, opera,
variety and street shows attended by over 450,000 people. Mexico reported that
while the host city was the center of Olympic cultural activity, the entire country participated in the year-long Cultural Olympiad. All of Mexico’s 29 states took part in one or more of the 552 cultural events held outside Mexico City. Among the latter were 171 concerts, 45 ballets, 151 motion-picture showings and 130 theatrical performances.104
Atlanta’s information package reported that the 1996 Olympic Arts
Festival included 19 exhibitions, almost 200 ticketed performances, numerous free
events, 17 works of public art which brought 3,000 artists and performers from
around the world. These included nine new theatrical works which premiered at the
festival; 13 participating dance ensembles, six of these presented works had never
102 Robert Fitzpatrick and Dan Pavillard, Rewarding die Risk: The Success o f the Olympic Arts Festival, Olympic Arts Festival Los Angeles 1984. 54.
103 Ibid.., 54.
104 Volume 4 du rapport officiel. complet Mexico 1968. 275.
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been seen before; eight classical music ensembles and 25 new works in the visual
arts.o r + o 105
In the Official Guide of the 1996 Olympic Arts Festival, Billy Payne,
President and Chief Executive Officer of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic
Games, said “how fitting that, on the occasion of the Centennial of the Modem
Olympic Games, ACOG has produced one of the richest and most varied cultural
programs ever presented in conjunction with the Olympic Games.”106 Payne was
specifically referring to the national and international theme of the Atlanta Games’
four Olympic Arts Festivals.
Sydney’s four planned Olympic Arts Festivals, like Atlanta’s, will be a
combination of all the themes including the indigenous, national and international.
The indigenous “Festival of the Dreaming” was the first of the four festivals, held in
1997. “A Sea Change” will be a national event and “Reaching the World” and
“Harbour of Life” are both based on national and international themes. Rome’s art
program focused on the historic relationship between sport and art and, in 1964,
Tokyo presented traditional Japanese art. These thematic differences were also used
as pointers in official reports to explain why that host city’s program was the “best.”
The IOC rules require each bid city to include an outlined cultural
program and proposed budget in the bid documents but do not insist the host city
105 The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games Cultural Olympiad: 1996 Olympic Arts Festival.
106 The Atlanta Committee for the Olvmnic Games Cultural Olympiad: 1996 Olympic Arts Festival Official Guide. (Atlanta 1996), inside front cover.
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adhere to the budget outlined. Instead, the budget of each Cultural Olympiad,
determined by the host’s national organizing committee, has varied significantly over
the years, peaking at the 1992 Barcelona Games at US$59 million. Montreal’s one
month program in 1976 was budgeted at Can$12.875 million. In comparison, the
1984 Los Angeles Games, which ran over 10 weeks, listed direct festival expenses in
its official report at US$11.5million.107 In an interview, Fitzpatrick said his total
budget was more likely around US$20 million and that US$7 million of that figure
came from foreign governments.108 Atlanta’s initial budget was a reported US$40
million. By the end o f the Games this figure was cut back to a reported US$25
million. Sydney’s budget has been cut from the original A$51.5 million listed in the
bid documents to a widely quoted A$21 million. General Manager o f Sydney’s
Olympic Arts Festivals, Craig Hassall, reports the budget is now A$30 million for the
entire four-year period.
The cuts in Atlanta’s Olympic arts budget forced the cancellation of a
concert of international and American stars, including soul king James Brown,
African funk diva Angelique Kidjo and Japanese folk hero Shoukichi Kina. Tickets
had already been sold to the event. Atlanta journalist Howard Pousner wrote that
“every time privately run ACOG tightens its belt, the arts program is squeezed.”109
Journalist Bert Roughton noted “rather than cultivating the kind of world-class
107 Robert Fitzpatrick and Dan Pavillard, 66.
108 Robert Fitzpatrick, Interview with Debra J. Good, Sydney, 24 June 1998.
109 Howard Pousner,Atlanta's high-brow blues. The Sydney Morning Herald. 5 March 1996.
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experience that lingers in the spirit, ACOG executives have chosen to be tightwads.
To them, culture is a cost center without clear benefit.”110
Sydney’s bid documents listed US$14million for the 2000 Olympic Arts
Festival, “The Harbour o f Life.” This has now been reportedly cut to A$4 million.111
Sydney’s first Cultural Olympiad Director, Jonah Jones, identified the budget as the
core reason for deciding to quit the position in October 1996. Jones argued that, if
SOCOG needed to buy a stop watch for the track and field, the money would more
than likely come from the cultural budget.112
Host cities repeatedly promote their Cultural Olympiad as “the best so
far” by criticizing the previous and ignoring the next. At the same time, “exhibition”
organizers have repeatedly referred to the need to integrate the arts with the sports
program. Montreal’s Official Report stated that it hoped its approach to the Cultural
Olympiad “would make it possible for the program to be really integrated into the
Games, rather than exist as a parallel attraction to the sports program, as had
happened in the past.”113 Seoul, Tokyo, Moscow, Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney
have all made a similar claim.
110 Bert Roughton Jr.,To ACOG, Cultural aspect o f Games worth very little, The Atlanta Constitution. 8 December 1995.
111 Ben Holgate, The Australian. 7 May 1998.
112 Jonah Jones, Interview by Debra J. Good, Melbourne Australia, 18 February 1998.
113 Montreal 1976 Games of the XXI Olympiad Montreal 1976. Official Renort Volume T Organization.
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So far Robert Fitzpatrick114 and Jonah Jones have been the only directors
to argue the Olympics is about sport and that there is no role for culture. While Craig
Hassall and Atlanta’s Director of the Cultural Olympiad, Jeffrey Babcock, have
argued that integration with the sports is essential for the arts to increase its profile in
the context of the sporting games, they also publicly attempt to pinpoint the reason
(according to them) why the preceding Olympiad was not integrated with the sporting
program.
Both Barcelona and Atlanta planned to have a full Olympiad, according to Craig Hassall, “but it never worked.” In Sydney not only was the arts bonanza an important part of the bid all those moons ago, but it’s happening at least in part because of the lesson learnt at Atlanta: that it’s all too easy for the arts to get lost while the sport is going on.115
Hassall continued, “Atlanta provided evidence that marketing an Olympic
arts festival is as important as planning it.” Hassell makes these claims despite the
fact that many of ACOG’s cultural events were sold out well before the games were
to begin because of a smart marketing move that tied arts event ticketing with sports
event ticketing. For the first time in Olympic history, tickets for Olympic Arts
Festival events could be booked along with the tickets for sporting events.
Hassall has also repeatedly misinterpreted both Barcelona’s and Atlanta’s
four-year arts festivals, claiming either they, did not work or did not happen. Hassall
has said Sydney’s four-year program is an Olympic first and, as the distinguishing
114 Robert Fitzpatrick, interview with Debra J. Good, Sydney, June 1998.
us Indigenous Arts. August-November 1997, http://www.statarLcorn.au/tndigenous/dreaining hrml 2 of 4.
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feature, will save Sydney’s Olympic arts program from being swamped by the
sporting Games, as he says occurred in Atlanta and Barcelona.116 But, Barcelona’s
four-year program involved a major urban renewal effort which included the
renovation or construction of museums and theaters throughout the city. It was
launched in 1988 with “Gateway to the Olympiad” and in 1989, 1990 and 1991 a
major exhibition was held in conjunction with an annual autumn festival. Atlanta’s
cultural organizers put on what they described as “a four-year multi-disciplinary arts,
culture and entertainment program that [culminated] in the Olympic Arts Festival in
the summer of 1996.”117
Atlanta’s Jeffrey Babcock argued that Barcelona’s Cultural Olympiad had
failed because the events were too geographically spread out. According to Babcock,
Atlanta’s Olympic Arts Festival events would succeed because they were all taking
place within the designated five-kilometer inner-city Olympic ring, which also
contained the Olympic Village, the Olympic Stadium and most of the sporting events.
Fitzpatrick claims it was the programming that made LA’s Olympic Arts
Festival a success. In 1980 the charter required the cultural program to include a
national focus. Fitzpatrick negotiated with IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch
for permission to include an international component. Samaranch agreed on the
condition the content of the Olympic Arts Festival during the Los Angeles Games
116 Angela Bennie, Pitching it beyond the Black Stump, The Sydney Morning Herald. 1998.
117 1996 Olympic Arts Festival, The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games Cultural Olympiad. Information Package.
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themselves were national.118 Both Munich and Mexico’s Cultural Olympiad included
international events but LA’s stands out for the risks it took including acts such as the
avant garde German dance company Pina Bausch and Australia’s Circus Oz. Since
1984 the rules have required a balance between national and international events.
Barcelona claimed that neither Seoul nor Los Angeles would have been
suitable cities for a comparable four-year arts program culminating with an arts
festival. Barcelona’s cultural history and beauty formed a natural backdrop and
cultural environment for the Olympic Arts Festival. The organizing officials who
made this observation did not consider that it also implicates the suitability of future
cities. This did not discourage Atlanta, whose cultural reputation resembled that of
LA prior to its Olympic art program, from mounting its own four-year program.
Barcelona’s report stated that “the three Festivals may be considered as
the three panels of a triptych leading up to a top level Olympic Festival of the Arts in
the summer of 1992.”119 It also stated that “This ‘bombardment’ approach, criticised
in some quarters and applauded in others, eventually bore fruit. It became clear as
each year went by that the audiences were growing...”120 Fitzpatrick argued “LA’s
118 Interview with Debra J. Good, Sydney, Australia, 24 June, 1998.
119 The Means: Objectives, Resources and Venues. Official Report of the Games of the XXV Olympiad Barcelona 1992. Vol U.
120 The Games: Sixteen Days in Summer, Official Report of the Games of the XXV Olympiad Barcelona 1992. Vol IV.
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OAF team put all its energies into a ten week festival that, when it hit town, blew
right through LA like a hurricane.”121
Recently, Jeffrey Babcock, Craig Hassall, Jonah Jones and Robert
Fitzpatrick have acknowledged that the Cultural Olympiad’s OAFs have had an
identity problem122. Jeffrey Babcock said "We’re trying to push the arts side of the
Olympics to a more central experience in the games. Many times (the arts) have
existed as a sidecar to the event."123
121 Robert Fitzpatrick, Interview with Debra J. Good, Sydney 24 June, 1998.
122 These acknowledgements have all occurred during the various interviews with each of the four.
123 Hollis L. Engley,In Atlanta, the Olympic Artists will Rival the Athletes, Gannet News Service. 19 June 1996.
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THE CULTURAL OLYMPIAD: A RELINQUISHED IDENTITY
The study of the history of sport is vitally dependent upon artifacts from antiquity: illustrations o f agnostic contest on coins, shields, ornaments, vases, sculpture and bas- reliefs.
Benjamin Lowe. The Beauty of Sport124
When Los Angeles bid for the 1984 Olympic Games, it was the only city
vying. After the terrorism in 1972, which left 11 Israeli athletes dead in Munich; the
financial disaster which left Montreal SICan billion in debt in 1976; and the 1980
political boycotts in Moscow which led the American television network, NBC, to
cancel its Olympic programming, the Olympic movement was considered by many to
be on the brink of collapse. Many were predicting the movement’s imminent demise.
But after the 1980 Moscow Games, three events were pivotal in the
about-face which was to occur by the time of the 1984 Games. The first of these was
the 1980 election of Juan Antonio Samaranch as IOC President. The second was the
1981 IOC conference, which opened the way to increased television revenues. The
third was the 1984 LA Olympic Games themselves, which changed the face of
sponsorship within the Games. Peter Ueberroth, President of the 1984 LA Games,
persuaded 30 corporate sponsors to pay US$126 million for the right to advertise with
124 Quoted in Professor Nissiotis, Olympism. Sport and Aesthetics with Reference to the work of Pierre de Coubertin. 83. 51
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the Olympic rings and convinced the American Broadcasting Corporation to pay a
record US$225 million for the right to televise the Games.
These events marked a turning point in the history of the Olympic
Movement. It was the final shift away from the ideological origins which had
eschewed professionalism and was to prove a high jump into the 20th century world
of commercialism. The Olympic symbol - the five rings - is now claimed to be the
most recognised non-written symbol in the world, in front of the McDonalds and
Shell corporate logos and the Christian cross. In 1996, 11 countries bid for the 2004
games. With the long controversial amateur code finally scrapped in 1981, athletes
are now free to pursue lucrative professional careers.
As Hans Lenk, German Olympic rowing gold-medallist and professor of
philosophy, has said
on the one hand [the Olympics] will remain to be a great spectacular televisionary success, a tele-economic super spectacle so to speak, but on the other hand most of the value-orientations [originally promoted by Pierre de Coubertin and incorporated in his vision of the Olympics] have been pushed aside or ignored.125
Among these neglected value-orientations is the Cultural Olympiad.
In 1992 The Atlanta Joumal-Constitution wrote of the increased
commercialization and commodification of these former ‘amateur’ Games,
On the television screen, in magazine ads and on billboards around the globe every Olympic season, hundreds of companies hawk their status as an Olympic partner, sponsor, supplier or licensee. The money explosion has spread rapidly
125 Quoted in John Lucas, Future of the Olympic Games. (Human Kinetics Books, Champaign, Illinois, 1992), 74.
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throughout what was once known as the amateur sports world, enriching hundreds of people, including athletes who a generation ago would have been ejected from the Games as professionals.126
Three decades earlier, artists had been stopped from competing at the Games as
professionals.
The 1996 Olympic Marketing fact file reported that the total number of
accredited media representatives (including photographers) in LA in 1984 totalled
8,200. By the 1996 Atlanta Games this figure had more than doubled to 17,000.
Also, at Atlanta there were 3,000 hours of television coverage and 11 million tickets
sold to an estimated 2.2 million spectators. And, according to the fact file, there was
a global television audience of over 4 billion viewers - in 200 countries - representing
a cumulative global audience o f 20 billion.
Yet, hardly any of this media exposure shone on the Cultural Olympiad.
How does an arts festival, held in a different nation and city, with a different format,
budget, structure and resources, develop its identity? Has the Olympics lost an
integral part of its being? Part of the problem may be the manner in which the Games
themselves are remembered by the public. Each of the sporting Games are
remembered for significant events: terrorism in Munich, Jessie Owens’ sprint in
Berlin, the fastest time or most memorable stadium, and the opening and closing
ceremonies. The media, and particularly the broadcast media, now play a central role
in this process of remembering. The broadcast media, having spent hundreds of
126 The Selling o f the Olympics’, How Money has Changed the Games, The Atlanta Joumal- Constitution. July 12, 1992. Section G.
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millions acquiring the rights to televise the Olympic Games, focuses on Olympic
sport.
The Cultural Olympiad organizers not only start from scratch every four
years, they often change the name and structure, destroying any sense of lineage.
SOCOG started with the name Cultural Olympiad, but officially switched to Olympic
Arts Festivals. The Cultural Olympiads have received virtually no television and
very little press coverage compared to the sporting Games. Many Olympic fact books
and special publications have misrepresented the Cultural Olympiad despite the
promotional campaigns of some of the host cities. Montreal reports beginning an
intensive press program in February 1976, holding 10 press conferences and 20
newspaper interviews, sending out 70 press-releases, holding 11 television and 20
radio interviews and distributing 400 copies each of 98 different posters, as well as
hanging fliers around the city and on 23 billboards on Montreal’s metro.127
LA’s Olympic Arts Festival reportedly sold 186,000 tickets through a
direct mail campaign featuring a 40-page brochure. Another 58,000 tickets were sold
at venue box offices and 22,000 were reserved for the press and Festival artists. A
further 40,000 were apparently marketed through a commercial ticket agency.128
Since 1984 successive Cultural Olympiads have received increased press
exposure, but reviews often only reflect a focus on the current. Mention of any
127 Official Report of the Games of the XXI Olympiad. Ibii.
128 Robert Fitzpatrick & Dan Pavillard, Rewarding Risk: The Success o f the Olympic Arts Festival, 53.
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previous “festival” often reveals a lack of awareness of its content, timing or theme.
Malcolm Jones wrote in Newsweek.
Perusing the fare of the 1996 Olympic Arts Festival - the big cultural shebang running in Atlanta concurrently with the athletic competitions - I couldn’t help thinking of tailgate parties. No one who attends one of these movable feasts ever remembers very clearly what he ate or drank. And yet these parties are inextricably part of the ritual of going to football games. It's the same with Olympic Arts Festivals. Every host city whips up a cultural sideshow to accompany the Games and then, well, you do remember those remarkable arts offerings in Seoul, in Los Angeles, Barcelona? Neither does anyone else. But on they roll.129
Sydney’s full Olympiad arts programming has been touted in a number of
publications as a world or Olympic first. “It’s a world first, having events over four
years leading up to the Olympic Games. Both Barcelona and Atlanta planned to have
a full cultural Olympiad... but it never worked.”130 These statements have been
printed repeatedly in the Australian press.
The Australian Federal Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and
Trade promotional fact sheet titled Australian Culture and the Arts announced, “An
Olympic first - Australia is mounting a four-year cultural program.”131 And, in an
interview with The Sydney Morning Herald. Hassall is quoted as saying:
that the Nagano experience, where the cultural program ran alongside the sporting events, also reconfirmed in his mind that the decision to run in our cultural component over four years was the right one. It not only allowed time for the process of assimilation to take place, but it prevented the cultural component from being swamped completely by the sporting component, which
129 Malcolm Jones Jr. Newsweek. 29 July 1996,64..
130 Jeremy Eccles, "Hoop dreams", International Arts Manager. September 1997,29.
131 Australian Culture and the Aits. No. 13, (Version) October 1997. http://www.dfat.gov.au.
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was more often than not the case in Nagano, and at the Atlanta and Barcelona Olympics.132
Lauren Lantos wrote in Museum News that
The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) has produced the most expansive program ever, an arts, culture, and entertainment festival that began in 1993 and will culminate in the nine-week Olympic Arts Festival (June 1- August 4, 1996). With more than a million visitors expected and the attention of the world’s news media focused on the city, Atlanta’s cultural institutions would seem poised for a windfall o f recognition and revenue.
Further into the article Lantos writes “Compared to other cities, Atlanta’s goals for
the Cultural Olympiad sound ambitious. Most Cultural Olympiads have run from
four to 10 weeks; Atlanta’s has been going on for four years.”133
Lantos also wrote
In 1906 de Coubertin and a group of peers proposed that art and culture be included in the Games of the Modem Olympiads. Based on this proposal, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) outlined the guidelines for a Cultural Olympiad - an arts and cultural festival for the period during, and often preceding, the Olympic Games
She continued: “Since then, each host city has had the option of choosing, the type
and length of festival to present.”134 The fine arts competitions do not even rate a
mention in this otherwise reputable arts publication.
The Olympic Spirit: 100 years of the Games claims to be “the most
comprehensive and elegant book ever published on the history of the Olympic
132 Angela Bennie, Pitching it Beyond the Black Stump, The SvdnevM orningHerald. Friday 20 February 1998, Arts 13.
133 Lauren Lantos, Museum News July/August 1996, 34.
134 Ibid..
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Games.” But, in the chapter “Arts and the Athletes”, author Susan Weis mixes the art
competitions of earlier modem Games with the opening and closing ceremonies,
Olympic architecture, the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Olympic pins and the
commemorative medals. These descriptions sprint from Mexico’s and LA’s Cultural
Olympiads to descriptions of Helsinki and Rome’s architecture, to various opening
and closing ceremonies without defining, delineating or explaining their distinctive
roles in the Olympic Games.
Weis states the arts competitions were terminated because of the
“mediocre quality of many of the entries” and continues “it was also plain that the
majority of spectators were interested chiefly, if not exclusively, in Olympic sports
events. Although Olympiads after 1948 jettisoned the artistic competitions, they
continued to celebrate the link between sport and art.”135 Those arguing against the
termination of the competitions claimed it was the lack of publicity that prevented
spectators from knowing about the arts events. Far from a “comprehensive history”,
Weis dismisses the extended debate which eventually led to the official shift from
competitions to mandated exhibitions and ignores the ideological and philosophical
history of the role of the arts in the Olympics.
In the summer of 1996, Time Magazine published a special Olympic
edition. Its lead story, “100 Years: A History of the Summer Games, From Athens to
Atlanta”, began “The greatest champion in Olympic history won no medals. Baron
135 Susan Weis, The Olympic Spirit: 100 Years of the Games. (San Francisco, Collins Publishers, 1995), 129.
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Pierre de Coubertin wasn't even much of an athlete.” 136 But, at the first of the arts
competitions held in Stockholm in 1912, Coubertin did win a gold medal - for his
poem “Ode to Sport.” This factual error occurred even though the Time Magazine
publisher was the sponsor of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival, contributing US$5
million for direct expenses as well as promoting the Festival’s events, covering the
cost of some publishing and purchasing large blocks of tickets. The total value of this
sponsorship was estimated at around SUS10 million.
Newsweek also ran a special Atlanta Olympic Preview - A 32 page guide
to the Games -which did not mention the Olympic arts. The Chicago Tribune ran a
story that began: “When art scholars learned of the art exhibition planned to coincide
with the Atlanta Olympics, word went out quickly: Let the gripes begin. Art at a
sporting event?” 137
A review of “The Festival of the Dreaming’s” “Earthstrokes” published
in The Australian’s Review of Books, excludes any reference to the Olympic
connection.138 In the closing paragraph of an article on the awakening ceremony that
opened the “Festival of the Dreaming”, John McCallum wrote “In its first three days
Rhoda Roberts’ festival, the first of four Olympics arts festivals.” 139 SOCOG’s
official description of the “Festival of the Dreaming” as “the first of four Olympic
136 Special Edition Time. Summer 1996.
137 Chicago Tribune 4 June 1996.
138 Hetti Perkins, The Australian's Review of Books. 10 September 1997, 16.
139 John McCallum, The Australian. 18 September 1997.
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arts festivals” was dutifully repeated in various newspaper articles, radio and
television reports alike.
The Chair of SOCOG’s Cultural Commission, Donald McDonald, is
reported as saying
...the three annual Olympic arts festivals leading up to the main Cultural Olympiad in 2000 would be short events of about 16 days designed to show off the diversity of Australia's cultural life. Yet critics complain that the lead-up festivals will detract from the main arts festival. They say Barcelona's lead-up festival failed to attract international interest - and that there has been little interest in Atlanta's lead-up cultural program. It really isn't, frankly, interesting to me that someone in Budapest knows that we have a lead-up program in 1997, 1998 and 1999.. .the primary aim of the lead-up programs was to make the people of Sydney and Australia more aware that the Olympics has a cultural component.140
Among the four Olympic Arts Festivals being staged by SOCOG, its 1998 Festival -
“A Sea Change” - has been designed to achieve this “primary aim” with its national
focus.
The Sydney Morning Herald reviewed two different events from
Sydney’s second OAF “A Sea Change” festival without any reference to the
Olympic connection or to the festival itself. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s
Beethoven Festival advertising excluded any reference to the event’s inclusion in the
Olympic Arts “A Sea Change.” And, one subscriber141 to the Sydney Symphony
commented that, despite her close involvement with the Olympic movement, she was
1,40 Ava Hubble, The Svdnev Momng Herald. 6 June 1995, 17.
141 The subscriber asked to remain anonymous.
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completely unaware the Beethoven Festival was linked with the Olympic Arts
Festival.
The management of the Olympic Arts Festivals’ marketing has often been
controlled by the marketing department of the organizing committee and marketing
budgets have not been published with the official reports. Research suggests that, as
with many arts institutions, marketing is restricted to reviews and newspaper stories.
However, because of the nature of its agreements with groups such as the Sydney
Symphony Orchestra, Sydney’s organizers can claim to be actively mixing its
marketing. For example, Hassall claims promotion of the festival includes the direct
mailing to Sydney Symphony subscribers. •
All of these examples illustrate the nature of the coverage and reviews
given to Olympic cultural events. Books claiming to be the most comprehensive
guides to the Olympics and to include every single result of every single event since
1896 exclude the results of arts competitions.142 The history of the arts competitions,
exhibitions and festivals at the Olympic Games has been lost. The organizing
committees of successive Olympics have failed to build a modem version of
Coubertin’s vision of “Olympism”, failed to integrate their art programs with the
sporting Games, and failed to construct a strong foundation for the arts in the
Olympics.
14' Wallechinsky, The Complete Book to the Olympics. (Harmondsworth, Middlesex England: Penguin Books, 1984).
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CONCLUSION
The 60s were the beginning of a new association between art and sport, between muscle and mind, at the Olympic Games. Although Coubertin did not exactly predict what was about to happen after Melbourne, he had at least expressed the wish back in 1924 that the artistic and cultural content of the Games should expand well beyond the art 'competitions' which, as he had pertinently remarked, were hampered with growing management problems.
Prof.F Landry,Pierre De Coubertin, The Modem Olympic Games and the Arts143
As a classical scholar, Pierre de Coubertin was aquainted with the history
and role of festivals. Coubertin’s father (an artist) had given him an appreciation for
the power of the image and he was always attracted to the potential of the ceremonial
adornments of the Olympic Games; its flag, oath, flame, processions, opening and
closing ceremonies, and triumphal odes, to overwhelm the spectator. Coubertin also
understood that it was not only through the cultural, artistic and festive that the
Olympic Games would stand out among other international sporting events but also
through the strength of symbols, tradition and protocol. Coubertin wrote: “Sport must
be considered as a producer of Art and as an occasion for Art.”144 But, in the history
143 Prof. Fernand Landry,Pierre de Coubertin, The Modem Olympic Games and the ReportArts, of the XXVT Session of the International Olympic Academy.(Lausanne: IOC, 1986), 98.
144 Quoted in Olympic Ceremonies: Historical Continuity and Cultural Exchange. International Symposium on Olympic Ceremonies Barcelona, (Lausanne, 1995), 159. 61
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of the Modem Games, the one central point that has not been successfully conveyed
is why the arts are included with a festival of sport.
The question Robert Fitzpatrick asked of himself before the 1984
Olympics can be recast as this. Why is a four-year international arts festival which
has been going on since 1912 and which is branded by what the IOC boasts is the
world’s most recognised and most marketable symbol - the five Olympic rings - so
little known?
In the Olympic Games, it is the opening and closing ceremonies, not the
Olympic Arts Festivals, which are considered the occasion for art and culture.
University of Chicago Professor and Olympic scholar John MacAloon argues,
...where does the abstract conception of Olympic ideology as a movement for peace and international understanding take on human flesh and blood? Where does it most materialize into living representations for the vast majority of people outside the Olympic family who encounter the Olympic phenomenon from their living rooms or comer bars every two years? The answer is in the ceremonies, and Olympic sports events only insofar as they are contextualized, encased within, and punctuated by the flame relay, opening, victory, and closing ceremonies. Otherwise, as wonderful as they are, these sports contests would be mere world championships145
Radboume and Fraser write:
Festivals package art into an event which can include disparate experiences and a range of choices. Festivals encourage group patronage and cultist following. Marketing opportunities encompass the tourist dollar, encouraging consumers to believe they can experience the essence of a culture in an abbreviated time frame.146
145 John MacAloon, Olympic Ceremonies: Historical Continuity and Cultural Exchange. 33.
146 Jennifer Radboume and Margaret Fraser, Arts Management a Practical Guide. (Allen & Unwin, Sydney 1996), 261.
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The Olympics draws a massive cult following, within which are many thriving sub-
cults - from television junkies addicted to the sports events to Olympic pin, mascot
and stamp collectors. But the Cultural Olympiad has no cult following and Robert
Fitzpatrick claims only 10% of the audience at the LA OAF came from out of
town.147
Despite being overshadowed by the sporting events and the surrounding
ceremonies, the Cultural Olympiad plays an important role as the launching pad for
host city cultural events that otherwise would not happen. One o f its least recognized
bonuses is the opportunity it presents for cultural festivals that would otherwise be
scrambling for funding had the Olympics not come along. As “Festival o f the
Dreaming’s” director Rhoda Roberts put it “I suggest that perhaps the Testival of the
Dreaming’ is the arts extravaganza this country should have had back in 1988”,
during Australia’s Bicentennial celebration.148 LA’s 1984 Olympic festival put
“countries without diplomatic relations with one another on the same stage.”149
The Cultural Olympiad has many unique characteristics which
differentiate its organizing structure from ordinary commercial and non-profit arts
institutions. The main objective of a commercial institution is to produce a cultural
package at a profit. The non-profit group’s main aim is to produce the best art it can,
rather than to maximise, or even produce, a profit. With a guaranteed mandated life,
147 Keynote Speech, Robert Fitzpatrick, Imagining the Market. Sydney 24 June 1998.
148 Stephen Dunne, Written on the body, The Sydney Morning Herald. 12 September 1997.
149 Olympic Message. Comite International Olympique, No.9 (March 1985), 14.
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rather than to maximise, or even produce, a profit. With a guaranteed mandated life,
Cultural Olympiad organizers simply have to, according to Craig Hassall, “sell an
Olympic project.”150
Both the NOCs and the local arts communities operate on their own terms
with their own different objectives. Abstracted from the social and economic context
of the local community, successive organizing committees do not emphasize audience
development, at least not beyond the time frame of “their” Olympics. The
relationship between the NOCs and the arts community of any host city is in the end
both temporary and artificial. Ultimately, the NOC has the final say over the
contractual details because it is the source of funding for the local arts community.
One administrator of a leading Sydney art institution described SOCOG as “another
line of beauracratic red tape” or “another point of discussion to be worked around.”
In both Sydney and Atlanta, leading cultural institutions became frustrated by their
dealings with the organizing committees, and in some instances chose not to get
involved with the Olympic Arts Festivals.151
Hassall identifies other crucial differences between the management of
arts institutions and the OAF, including, in his words, that the Cultural Olympiad has
“no audience base, no public expectation and no reality to it.” Hassall states, “it’s not
a festival in the way we think of festivals, we are not working on building audiences
150 Craig Hassall, Interview by Debra J. Good, 4 December, 1997. Sydney 2000 Olympic Headquarters, Ultimo NSW.
151 A number of arts managers interviewed - but requested they remain anonymous -made this point
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over 10 years, and its form can be played around with in a number of ways over the
four years.” It is, he says, “a festival in the definition of a celebration, and, in that
sense more inclusive.”152
The Concise Oxford Dictionary, definition of a festival is: l.n. Feast day,
celebration, merry-making; periodic musical etc. performance(s) of special
importance. Sydney's 1998 Festival “A Sea Change” examines the “historic global
movements of exploration and settlement, men and women as immigrants, explorers,
adventurers or fugitives” and celebrates “Australia’s evolution as a multicultural
society.” Yet, because of its tiny SA1.3 million budget, its director, Andrea Stretton,
has been forced to put the Olympic stamp on many events that have happened before,
will happen again or were going to happen anyway, such as the annual “Symphony
on the Sand” at Sydney’s Freshwater Beach and Canberra’s annual one-day “Word
Festival.”
Hassall claims that SOCOG’s AS1.3 million investment can leverage a
much greater cultural output, or added value, by using the selling power of the five-
ringed Olympic brand. But, the thinly spread result of “A Sea Change” lacks
cohesion and has no obvious link to the Olympics, not because it is geographically
spread out but because it does not meet the festival criteria of providing “an image as
an umbrella over all of the products.”153
152 Ibid..
153 John Gattoma, Festivals and the Marketing Thereof (Festivals Forum: Orange 6-9 March, 1987).
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The social impact of the Olympic Games is typically thought of in terms
of what legacy will the Cultural Olympiad or OAF leave to the local arts community
or industry after the Games depart. But a major difference between the sporting and
cultural aspects of the Olympic Games has been the marginalisation of the cultural
side. During the Olympics, the sporting Olympics take over the front pages o f a host
city newspaper, whereas Olympic arts events are usually restricted to the arts pages.
NOCs have struggled to market the Olympic Arts Festivals along with the
Olympic brand. Individual reviews of the various arts events skim over the Olympic
attachment if they bother to mention it at all. The Cultural Olympiad is not
accompanied by a numeric introduction in the same way the summer and winter
sporting games are - such as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad. The idea behind the
IOC’s support for four annual arts festivals was based on the marketing principle, the
more hits the better. But what does “the first of four Olympic Arts Festivals being
staged in the lead-up to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games”154 reveal about the role of
culture in the Olympics? For those who don’t know, there is little sense of these
events happening before or happening again. Olympic Arts Festivals are separated
from both the sporting Games and the opening and closing ceremonies which have
now long been the highest priced and most watched events at the Games.
Alongside the events of the Cultural Olympiad’s Olympic Arts Festivals,
the expansion of public arts funding (notwithstanding recent cutbacks in some
154 This sentence has appeared in either the opening or closing paragraph in numerous “Festival of the Dreaming” reviews.
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countries) has witnessed an accompanying growth in the arts worldwide. The social,
economic and political conditions influencing the production of “culture” have
changed enormously since Coubertin introduced the arts competitions in 1912. The
discipline of arts management has been introduced to universities world wide, and
arts funding from public, private and corporate sources has developed well beyond its
position at the turn of the century. The number of competitions in most areas of the
arts, as either sponsored or endowed events, have increased and arts groups
worldwide are searching for innovative ways to maximize exposure and income.
As soon as the host city’s arts community becomes aware of this thing
variously called the Olympic Arts Festival or the Cultural Olympiad, most everyone
wants to be involved. But, in the absence of historical continuity, most cultural
institutions do not fully realize that involvement has to be on the organizing
committee’s terms and that this is the case in every host city. For example, many
institutions struggle with the dilemma posed by the Olympics “bare” or “clean” venue
policies, which prohibit non-Olympic sponsors’ signage at Olympic events, including
the cultural events. But, if the Olympic Arts Festivals are to achieve a higher profile,
Olympic organizers need to break the current mould that ignores and excludes the
Olympic Arts Festival from the main Olympic marketing loop. On its own, the four-
year format has not facilitated integration with the sporting Games or significantly
increased the Cultural Olympiad’s profile.
One method could be to enlist the co-operation of the sponsors and
advertisers by convincing them the Olympic Games are not just about sport. As a
sign of the potential marketing value o f “culture” at the Olympics, marketers such as
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Nike, have succeded more than any Olympic sponsor to evoke the image of sport as
art through the style of commercials and advertisments. Nike also held a poetry
competition for the Nagano Winter Olympics.
At the Atlanta Games, US telephone giant AT&T spent a reported
US$50million on an advertising campaign that featured images of athletes as Chinese
dancers, Spanish matadors and American cowboys - interspersed with shots of
AT&T’s Global Olympic Village - in the heart of Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic
Park.155 The campaign focused on “representing the diversity and globality of the
Olympic experience”, said George Burnett, AT&T Vice President of marketing
services. “Cultural athletes symbolize the world coming together and AT&T plays a
role in bringing those people together.”156.
To date, corporate sponsorship of the Cultural Olympiad has been
fleeting. In 1996, Equifax sponsored the block-busterFive Rings o fPassion
exhibition at Atlanta’s High Museum. John Fairfax is backing Sydney’s Olympic
Arts Festival as part of its overall 2000 Games sponsorship and Time Mirror
sponsored LA’s 1984 Festival. But, as David D ’Allessandro said, while the Olympic
brand is “absolutely unique” in being consistently inspiring to consumers, the first
rule for sponsors is to make the multi-million-dollar sponsorships work by “finding a
direct and emotional way to bring the Olympics home to consumers year after
155 Kim Cleland, AT&T Splashes Olympic Ads with Global Color, Atianta-Constitution Journal. 10 June 1996.
156 Ibid.
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year.”157 D’Allessandro is Vice-President elect of the major Olympic sponsor John
Hancock Insurance.
If the IOC continues to insist on a cultural program, it also needs to
introduce permanent structural change to the way the Cultural Olympiad is included
in IOC agreements with host cities. National and International arts organizations
need to be part of the Olympic family in a way that mirrors the inclusion of sporting
federations in the power structures of the IOC and organizing committees. Combined
with arts programming excellence, such reforms would make Coubertin’s Cultural
Olympiad more appealing to corporate sponsors. In an age of global capitalism, one
way for the Cultural Olympiad to discover its lost history may be through its own
version of that other sacred symbol of ancient Greek Olympism revived by Coubertin
- the Olympic torch relay sponsored by Coca-Cola in Atlanta and Australian
insurance company AMP in Sydney. Another, would be through the re-introduction
of arts competitions.
157 Speech given by David D'Alessandro, President-Elect, John Hancock, Committee for Economic Development of Australia, Sydney, December 1, 1997.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX A
Rule No 44 from the Olympic Charter - Cultural Program
1 The OCOG must organize a program of cultural events which shall be submitted to the IOC Executive Board for its prior approval.
2 This program must serve to promote harmonious relations, mutual understanding and friendship among the participants and others attending the Olympic Games.
Bye-Law To Rule 44 - from The Olympic Charter - In force as from 15th June 1995.
1 The cultural program must include: •
1.1 cultural events organized in the Olympic Village and symbolizing the universality and the diversity of human culture;
1.2 other events with the same purpose held mainly in the host city, with a certain number of seats being reserved free of charge for participants accredited by the IOC.
2 The cultural program must cover at least the entire period during which the Olympic Village is open
70
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The following is a notice issued through the Swedish Olympic Committee concerning the guidelines for the art competitions for the 1912 Stockholm Games.
1. The Fifth Olympiad will include competitions in Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music, and Literature.
2. The Jury can only consider subjects not previously published, exhibited or performed, and having some direct connection with sport.
3. The winner o f each of the five competitions will be awarded the Gold Olympic Medal. The exhibits selected will, as far as possible, be published, exhibited or performed during the Olympic Games of 1912.
4. Competitors must notify their intention of entering for one or more of these competitions before the 15 January, 1912, and the exhibits themselves must be in the hands o f the Jury before the 1 March, 1912.
5. No limitations as to size or form are’laid down for manuscripts, plans, drawings or canvases, but sculptors are required to send in clay models, not exceeding 80 centimetres in height, length or width.
71
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Morgan, Joyce,A Change o f Pace, The Svdnev Morning Herald. 1 May 1998.
Perkins, Hetti, Dreams o f the City, The Australian's Review o f Books. 10 September 1997.
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______fro m Barcelona to Atlanta; Private Project with Roots in both Olympic Cities Plans Large Public Sculptures here as Games Legacy, The Atlanta Constitution. 18 May 1995.
______, Finishing strokes for Arts Fest: With program in place, planners enter production mode", The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 2 June 1995.
______, Stage for the World, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 1 August 1995.
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International Olympic Committee,The Cultural Olympiad, Olympic Review. XXV-9, June/July 1996.
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Bennie, Angela,Olympic and arts mix, The Svdnev Morning Herald. 2 July 2, 1997.
______, Pitching it beyond the Black Stump, The Svdnev Morning Herald. 20 February 1998.
Bemheimer, Martin, The Last Word on Festivals in "Festival An Olympic Celebration of the Arts", The Los Angeles Times. 15 April 1984.
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Burke, Kelly, Cultural Olympiad chief, The Svdnev Morning Herald. 27 February 1997.
Burke, Kelly, Change o f plan spells disaster at Sea,The Svdnev Morning Herald. 29 January, 1998.
Chambers, Verity, Thunderbolt's Black Mary rides into folklore, The Australian. 23 August 1997.
Chicago Tribune. 6 April 1996.
Cleland, Kim,AT&T Splashes Olympic ads with Global Color; First series uses athletes from around the world, Dow Jones News/Retrieval, 10 June, 1996.
DeVault, Russ, and Pousner Howard,ACOG ’naive'promoters say; None are surprised by amphitheater’s cancellation, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution 2 December, 1995.
Dunne, Stephen,Written on the body, The Svdnev Morning Herald. 12 September 1997.
Eccles, Jeremy, "Hoop Dreams", International Arts Manager. September 1997.
Eccles, Jeremy, Smart individuals are no match for the Clever People, The Australian Financial Review. Weekend 4-5 October 1996.
Engley, Hollis L.,In Atlanta the Olympic Artists will Rival the Athletes, Gannett News Service. 19 June 1996.
Festival An Olympic Celebration o f the Arts, The Los Angeles Times. 15 April 1984.
Fitzgerald, Michael, A Dream Beginning, Time. 29 September 1997.
Fitzpatrick Robert J., and Pavillard, Dan,Rewarding Risk; The Success o f the Olympic A rts Festival, Olympic Arts Festival Los Angeles 1984.
Forge, Andrew,First Impressions, in "Festival An Olympic Celebration of the Arts" The Los Angeles Times. 15 April 1984.
Fox, Catherine,Olympiad, Nexus exhibit to Showcase New South’s diverse artists; Atlanta 1996, The Atlanta Constitution. 27 September, 1995.
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Hallett, Bryce, What rebellion, asks Leo, The Svdnev Morning Herald. 8 May 1998.
______, The High Museum’s Olympic Lineup; A dazzling array o f emotions,
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Hubble, Ava, Stage is set for the Cultural Olympiad, Svdnev Morning Herald. 6 June, 1995.
Hulbert, Dan, Philanthropies get festival preview, The Atlanta Constitution. 23 April 1996.
Holgate, Ben, Games no good for arts giants, The Australian. 7 May 1998.
Holgate, Ben, The Rings Saga, The Australian. 7 May 1998.
Lawson, Valerie, So who is in charge, The Svdnev Morning Herald. 12 February 1997.
______Opera chief tunes up Olympic Arts, The Svdnev Morning Herald. 27 February 1997.
______, Olympics lead-up o f culturalfestivals scrapped, The Svdnev Morning Herald. 27 February 1997.
______, Olympic programs feel winds o f change, The Svdnev Morning Herald. 28 February 1997.
Martin, Lauren, Olympics chance 'lost', The Svdnev Morning Herald. 14 May 1998.
Meade, Amanda,Awakening dance conjures age o f Dreaming, The Australian. 15 September 1997.
Morgan, Joyce,A Change o f Pace, The Svdnev Morning Herald. 1 May 1998.
Perkins, Hetti, Dreams o f the City, The Australian's Review of Books. 10 September 1997.
Pincus, Robert L., Art for the Arts ’ Sake, in “Festival An Olympic Celebration of the Arts”, The Los Angeles Times. 15 April 1984.
Pousner, Howard,Southern Stars 'to show world our stuff,The Atlanta Journal. 11 January 1995.
______fro m Barcelona to Atlanta; Private Project with Roots in both Olympic Cities Plans Large Public Sculptures here as Games Legacy, The Atlanta Constitution. 18 May 1995.
______, Finishing strokes fo r Arts Fest: With program in place, planners enter production mode", The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 2 June 1995.
______, Stage for the World, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 1 August 1995.
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______, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 27 August 1995.
______, Arts Festival and More, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 19 September 1995.
______, Arts Festival: 53 performances sold out, including new Uhry play, Perlman concerts, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 17 November 1995.
______J.Director and Associate Resign over 'Differences The ’, Atlanta Constitution. 12 January 1996.
______, Olympiad Music Producer Leavingfor Job in Denver, The Atlanta Constitution. 8 February 1996.
Pousner, Howard & Turner, Melissa, Ticket Update: More Athletic, Cultural Events Sold Out, The Atlanta Constitution. 20 February 1996.
Pousner, Howard,Sydney can learn from the problems which have beset Atlanta’s Cultural Olympiad, Svdnev Morning Herald. 5 March 1996.
______, Shultz: Atlanta Arts on Brink of Greatness, The Atlanta Constitution. 24 March 1996.
______, The Olympic Woman, The Atlanta Constitution. 24 June 1996.
Roughton, Bert Jr., ToACOG, Cultural Aspect of Games worth very little, The Atlanta Constitution. 8 December 1995.
Sturrock, Staci, Curtain Opens to Public for First Time on Dozens o fAndrew Wyeth work", The Greenville IS.C.l News. 19 June 1996.
Terrazas, Michael, Lets the Arts Begin: The Cultural Olympiad, Georgia Tech Alumni Association. June 1996.
Turner, Brook, Dream on, The Svdnev Morning Herald. 29 October 1996.
The Festival o f the Dreaming, Canadian Cultural News. September 1997.
The Gift o f the Games: Barcelona Revisited; Post-Olympic Boom has brightened city’s image around the world, The Atlanta Journal. 19 April 1996.
Wong, Herman, On The Cutting Edge, in "Festival An Olympic Celebration of the Arts", The Los Angeles Times. 15 April 1984.
Internet
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Festival Dreams Indigenous Arts. August-November 1997, http://www.stateart,com.au/indigenous/dreaming.html
Olympism & the Olympic Movement: History, Concepts, Aims and Definition 19 March 1998. http://www.cora/-stock.com/dave/olyhist.html
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The Olympic Arts Festivals A Sea Change, http ://www. Sydney. Olympic,org/ culture/seaChange. html.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.