Historically, art has always been a cornerstone of the modern Olympic Games. In the early 20th century, the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, spoke about the importance of combining “muscle and mind.” Recent Olympic events have put a lot of emphasis on art and culture programming alongside sport competitions, and the Paris games this year will be no exception.
While the London 2012 Olympics saw a drop in museum attendance, France seems determined to make sure that sports don’t shunt art out of the way, and has developed a huge Cultural Olympiad: a rich, multidisciplinary program of free and ticketed events, exhibitions, shows, and performances running through the summer.
Here is Artsy’s roundup of the best shows to catch between the volleyball and dressage events.
“The Art of the Olympics”
Gagosian
Through Sep. 7
Following its 2019 show “An Exhibition for Notre-Dame,” Gagosian’s Paris gallery is once again holding a mirror up to the city with “The Art of the Olympics.” Presented across its two exhibition spaces on Rue de Castiglione and Rue de Ponthieu, the show features work from artists like Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Tracey Emin, and Pierre Soulages, all of whom have explored sports in different formats.
The Castiglione site hosts Andreas Gursky’s expansive aerial photograph of a football match, Amsterdam, Arena I (2000), alongside a drawing for Christo’s immense 1974 public sculpture Running Fence, and the elegant, almost ominous black lines of Marc Newson’s Black Surfboard (2017). The Ponthieu site introduces the visitor to iconic poster designs for past Olympic Games, like Rachel Whitehead’s abstract glass rings for London in 2012 and Cy Twombly’s slanted scrawl for the Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics. It’s a tightly curated show that encapsulates how sport is intertwined in the art world. All proceeds from sales go to the Olympic Refuge Foundation.
“En jeu! Artists and sport (1870–1930)”
Musée Marmottan Monet
Through Sep. 1
Presenting more than 100 major artworks borrowed from public and private collections all over the world, this show at the Musée Marmottan Monet looks back at how sport has been depicted through the modern era, from the height of Impressionism to Cubism. France is heavily represented here, with works from Pierre Bonnard, Gustave Courbet, Claude Monet, and Edgar Degas, but there are some foreign interludes, such as paintings by the American artist Thomas Eakins and Norwegian Impressionist Frits Thaulow.
The show is almost anthropological in scope, tracking how painters turned their gaze to sport as leisure activities became increasingly popular over the turn of the century and spilled across class boundaries. Depictions of colorful regattas and genteel outings to the races give way to roaring crowds at wrestling matches and amateur rugby matches on public fields, illustrating a French enthusiasm for sport forged by Paris hosting the Olympics in 1900 and 1924.
“Sport en banlieue parisienne” (“Sports in Parisian suburbs”)
Musée de l’histoire vivante Montreuil
Through Dec. 29
Despite the name, many of the events at the Paris Olympics aren’t taking place in the capital, but in its suburbs. Most of the action will be in the huge northeastern suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, where eye-catching venues like the Stade de France and the newly built aquatic center will welcome millions of spectators. It’s also where the young, bohemian town of Montreuil is located, and where this new show at the Musée de l’histoire vivante draws well-deserved attention to the young athletes who grow up on the fringes of the capital. Artworks loaned from the regional contemporary art fund are mixed with archival objects from past and present like medals, football shirts, and even battered foosball tables that show how sport and community thrive in these areas.
“La mécanique de l’exploit. Le corps à l’épreuve du sport” (“The mechanics of achievement. The body put to the test in sports”)
Musée d’art et histoire Paul Eluard
Through Nov. 25
The body is at the center of this exhibition, in all of its rawness and strength. Muscles ripple across an Auguste Rodin sculpture; the sinews on the hand of a discus thrower are picked out in fine detail in a 1926 photograph by René-Jacques. Elsewhere, ice skating blades curve through the air in Pierre Larauza’s sculpture of a figure skater. This multidisciplinary show at a gallery in the heart of Seine-Saint-Denis—just a short walk from major Olympic venues—interrogates what it takes to become an athlete: the limits to which the body can be pushed and the physical mechanics behind sporting feats.
“Sport and Beyond”
Almine Rech
Through Aug. 17
Three major American artists meet in this exhibition at Almine Rech’s Paris gallery. Jeff Koons presents a new work from his “Gazing Balls” series with a sporting twist: A sculpture modeled off the Borghese Gladiator (ca. 100 B.C.E.)—in the collection of the Louvre—is framed by brightly colored glass balls, combining the ancient and the modern. Laurie Simmons also combines two opposites in her works, asking AI platforms—which she calls her “collaborators”—to generate images for her that she then alters by printing them onto silk and applying swimming caps, rhinestones, and other details.
Lastly, Hank Willis Thomas’s retroreflective collage of Black athlete Jesse Owens hints at the “beyond” in the show’s title, reminding us of how Owens’s gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics encapsulated the perfect refutation of Nazi ideology. His triumphant totem Endless Column III (2017), a nod to Constantin Brâncuși’s sculpture with a similar name, is painted with “chameleon” body paint, implying that victory changes according to the viewer’s perspective.
“Le corps en mouvement” (“The body in motion”)
Le Petit Palais
Through Nov. 17
This free exhibition draws together 50 diverse works from Le Petit Palais’s collection that illustrate the human body in movement, from antiquity to the modern era. Notable works include a 490 B.C.E. statue of a discus thrower, vases made out of Sèvres porcelain that were given as trophies at the 1924 Paris Olympics, and Augustin Rouart’s painting The Swimmer (1943), which is used to illustrate one of the show’s unusual themes: the body in suspense. The painting captures the brief instant the swimmer takes a breath, turning his head up toward the viewer.
There is also a section on the emancipation of women through sport, with works reflecting their gradual inclusion in the Olympics from the beginning of the 20th century. One salient fact: There were 22 female competitors in the 1900 Paris Olympics, among 997 overall participants. Over a century later, the 2024 Paris Olympics will be the first Olympic Games in history to see full gender parity.
“La Mode en mouvement” (“Fashion in motion”)
Palais Galliera
Through Jan. 5, 2025
Palais Galliera, the city’s temple to fashion and its history, is presenting the second in its triptych of “Fashion on the move” exhibitions. Curator and Palais Galliera director Miren Arzalluz has selected a vast range of items from the museum’s collections to explore both the evolution of clothes designed for sport, and how sportswear gradually made its way from courts and pitches to the runway and then to everyday fashion.
Displayed chronologically, the show starts with the unwieldy bustles and crinolines of the 18th century, moving through to skirts made for riding side-saddle, the voluminous balloon sleeves of ladies’ tennis attire in the 19th century, and Chanel’s clipped and stylish jersey ensemble, up to the fluid, urban streetwear of the 21st century. The show’s second chapter adds on a special exhibition of swimwear in time for summer, exploring how silhouettes have changed with evolving social mores.
“Olympisme, une histoire du monde” (“Olympism, a story of the world”)
Palais de la Porte Dorée
Through Sep. 8
Sports are political, and the 128-year history of the International Olympic Games reflects this. This exhibition at Paris’s museum on the history of immigration explores the social and political battles that take place beyond the stadium. The exhibition unfurls chronologically, leading the visitor through the early years of the Olympics against a backdrop of nascent fascism between 1920 and 1944, then the years of the Cold War and decolonization, and the Black Panthers’ fight against segregation and racism echoing on the world stage from the podium, up to the globalized Olympics of today.
“Histoires paralympiques. De l’intégration sportive à l’inclusion sociale (1948–2024)” (“Paralympic stories. From sports integration to social inclusion (1948–2024)”)
Panthéon
Through Sep. 29
This year marks the first time the Paralympic Games have been held in Paris, and the Panthéon is dedicating its summer exhibition to them. It takes the 1948 Stoke Mandeville Games—a small archery event in London for just 16 wheelchair athletes, and the genesis of today’s Paralympic Games—as its starting point, before going on to trace the challenges and triumphs of making high-level sports accessible to people with disabilities over the next 76 years. Photographs, videos, posters, press archives, iconic objects, and interviews form a moving tribute to the athletes who have left their mark on sporting history. Access to the exhibition is free with a Panthéon ticket.
“Olympism: Modern Invention, Ancient Legacy”
The Louvre
Through Sep. 16
In this exhibition, the Louvre goes back to the beginnings of the world’s largest sporting competition, and the people who helped to bring it to life. The Olympics has a distinctly French history: It was Pierre de Coubertin who proposed a revival of the ancient Greek contest in a speech at the Sorbonne in 1894, but a name that many visitors won’t know is Michel Bréal, a French linguist who designed the first-ever trophy for the Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, now displayed in Paris for the first time thanks to an exceptional loan. The show maps the history of the modern Olympics and its ricochet between Greece and France, through archaeological finds, modern artifacts, and iconography.
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