"There may be some who would like to do something else..." suggested Raymond Devos, a French comedian, in a falsely ingenuous tone in a sketch entitled "Faites l’amour, pas la guerre" ("Make love, not war"). This little phrase must often cross the weary and restive minds of people who would like to talk about something other than the Olympic Games, who don’t want to take part in any sporting activity until it becomes officially compulsory, which will probably be very soon, and who, after turning off their radio, television and mobile phone, lowering their eyes as they wander through the streets and shops to escape the images celebrating this meeting of universal and now commercial values, take refuge in a museum, only to stumble across... an exhibition linked to the Olympic Games. Many museum institutions have followed suit. Should we not be delighted? It’s not even certain. The point, of course, is not to pit sport and culture against each other, but rather to avoid forcing them together.
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- 1. The Place de la Concorde disappears under the bleachers
for the Olympic Games
Photo: bbsg - See the image in its page
Because this marriage lacks a certain harmony: while the whole of the capital’s cultural life is getting in tune with the Olympic Games, the Olympic Games are glossing over Paris’s heritage. A telling example: the dazzling Place de la Concorde has disappeared under bleachers, and its sculptures behind wooden panels (ill. 1). It’s a little unfortunate to hide the beauty of Paris at a time when the City of Light is precisely in the spotlight. And while the city’s heritage is being erased, big warts are popping up here and there - monumental, colourful contemporary works that are so hard on the eyes that ophthalmologists must be on tenterhooks.
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- 2. 2. The Palais Bourbon
with a work by Laurent Perbos,
Beauty and Gesture
Photo: Graphic design ©studiotropicalist ©Laurent Perbos - See the image in its page
From the perspective of the now-invisible Concorde, six Venus de Milo strut their stuff on the steps of the Palais Bourbon - red, yellow, purple...- huge, gaudy (ill. 2), miraculously endowed with arms to hold a bow, javelin, surfboard or even boxing gloves, no doubt ready to give the passerby a ’handless’ welcome; it’s hard to resist the easy pun when faced with a work that’s the stuff of potty jokes. It’s called, no kidding, Beauty and gesture. But why stop there? Why not interpret the Victory of Samothrace as well? It’s the ideal allegory to embody the Games and dreams of medals. She could stand, majestic winged figure, in front of the Arc de Triomphe. Of course, we would have to invent a head for her. The first Victory - iridescent white, with colourful feathered wings - would have the head of a dove, to symbolise Peace, so closely associated with Olympism, while the second - pink-grey, with bald wings - would have the head of a pigeon, symbolising Paris and Parisians, fooled, surrounded and feathered by this event.
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- 3. The Palais Brongniart on the Place de la Bourse
Statues of sportsmen and women sponsored by Nike
Photo : bbsg - See the image in its page
Elsewhere, the facade of the Hôtel de Ville is dressed in a dismaying cardboard ornament meant to serve as a "visual landmark". The exorbitant cost of this decoration suggests that the City Hall has rather lost all common sense. On the Place de la Bourse, in front of the Palais Brongniart, there were other monumental statues, this time in bright orange, representing famous sportsmen and women such as Kylian Mbappé and Victor Wembanyama (ill. 3). What do they have in common? They’re all sponsored by Nike and have the pleasure of wearing the brand’s compressed air shoes. So is this a work of art, just as ugly as the others, or a giant advertisement installed in the public space? The confusion is a little embarrassing. The brand has also signed a partnership agreement with the Centre Pompidou. We don’t know what it will be doing in the museum, but it has financed a work of art that will also be a skateboard track, installed in front of the building. It’s true that museums need money, and that patrons are essential. But can we allow the city to be invaded by installations whose aesthetic quality is, after all, quite relative?
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- 4. Thomas Eakins (1844-1916)
The Biglin Brothers in a Race, 1872
Oil on canvas - 61.2 x 91.6 cm
Washington, National Gallery of Art
Photo : NGA - See the image in its page
This frenzy of activity on the part of museums, anxious to adapt to current events by offering an exhibition on the Olympic Games, is probably aimed at attracting visitors, if they can get around the city at all. Nevertheless, the proliferation of initiatives is leading to general confusion, and people are no longer sure which way to turn. What’s more, a number of exhibitions, perhaps prepared too late, are modest or disappointing.
The exhibition at the Musée Marmottan [1], tells the story of the development of sport at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: at first it was an activity reserved for the idle aristocracy, before being democratised and becoming a leisure activity for the masses. It is a great pity, however, that the works are merely illustrations of this social analysis. Their presentation, contrary to what is announced, does not show how sport was a subject of modernity for painters and sculptors; the itinerary, not always clear, does not highlight the various possibilities of translating body movements, effort and speed. The styles were varied, as were the points of view: some artists were more interested in the spectators than in the competitions, while others practised the sporting activity they were painting, as in the case of Thomas Eakins for rowing (ill. 4), while George Bellows claimed to know nothing about boxing, for which he was reproached, "I’m just painting two men trying to kill each other".
The antique references in this modernity could have been the subject of a section in its own right. Among the works scattered throughout the exhibition are Antoine Bourdelle’s Hercules the Archer; Georges Desvallières chose heroic nudity for his (Ball Players) and Gustave Courbet painted this great (Woman with a Podoscaph->https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:La_Femme_au_podoscaphe_by_Courbet.png) which he also called the Modern Amphitrite, no doubt in derision of the great mythological nudes of the salons. Maurice Denis depicted Nausicaa and her companions playing with a ball to wake Ulysses from the wreck of his ship: Denis transformed this ball game into a game of tennis.
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- 5. Luc-Olivier Merson (1846-1920)
The Soldier of Marathon, 1869
Oil on canvas - 114x 147 cm
Paris, École nationale des beaux-arts
Photo: ENSBA - See the image in its page
The exhibition at the Musée du Louvre [2] on the other hand explains perfectly the making of modern Olympism based on ancient sources. It highlights the key players in the invention of the Olympic Games at the end of the 19th century: Pierre de Coubertin, of course, but also the philologist and linguist Michel Bréal and Émile Gilliéron, the official artist at the first Games held in Athens in 1896. His studio collection, bequeathed to the École française d’Athènes in 2015, bears witness to the inspiration he drew from archaeological remains to design the new iconography of the Games, helping to develop a powerful form of communication: he created posters, postcards and even stamps, which are displayed in the exhibition alongside Greek sculptures, reliefs, cups, craters and skyphos, whose figures and motifs they reproduce. These are stamps, postcards and posters, so the works on display are not particularly dazzling, especially as the great ancient sculptures on display - Discobolus, Medici Wrestlers, Hermes of Olympia - are all modern prints. Finally, the rich and fascinating catalogue is perhaps more attractive than the exhibition, which is limited to three rooms.
We can, however, admire the cup designed by Michel Breal, the trophy given to the winner of the first marathon at the Athens Games in 1896. It was Bréal who invented this race of over forty kilometres. He drew on Greek history, an episode from the First Medieval War in 490 BC. A messenger ran this distance to announce to the Athenians their victory over the Persians at Marathon. He died after delivering the news. Merson tackled the subject in a painting that won him the Prix de Rome in 1869 (ill. 5). Another painting by Charles de Coubertin, Pierre’s father, is an astonishing allegory of sport. The artist depicts the rebirth of the Games from the Acropolis in Athens, with the Eiffel Tower in the background and Athena crowning a rugby player surrounded by other sportsmen and women.
This exhibition highlights the similarities, but also the gulf, between the ancient Games and the modern ones, which were organised in homage to the gods. The performance of the athletes was not the primary concern, since the winner was considered to have their blessing. Finally, training was more important than the competition itself, as every citizen had to be ready to defend the city. Sport was a political activity in the truest sense of the word, and not a spectator activity as it is today.
The spectacle is also what today’s museums aim to entertain rather than edify (see article). Sport, culture and leisure now form a compact whole, with entertainment at its heart. For example, during the Olympic Games, you can take part in yoga sessions, cardio classes or disco dancing in the halls of the Louvre before it opens to the public. Woo-hoo. One of the aims of this programme is to attract people who don’t come to the museum spontaneously. But what’s the point of getting them to come if not to look at the works? It would be interesting to ask participants to comment on what they see while they sweat on a cardio exercise or adopt the plough posture, legs over head, during a yoga session. And while we’re at it, the Louvre could also offer out-of-water swimming lessons in front of The Raft of the Medusa: participants, lying flat on a stool, miming breaststroke movements in the air, would probably be motivated by the sight of the painting. A more difficult option would be to organise a show-jumping event in the Mona Lisa room, in the middle of the day, with the tourists crowded in front of Da Vinci’s painting acting as obstacles.
Maurice Barrès said, "Sport produces ignoramuses and cardiac patients, brutes and cripples". Of course, no one can accept such a view of sport. Nor on museums.