The arts were always meant to be part of the Olympics, as envisioned by the so-called father of the modern games, Pierre de Coubertin. For decades the events included competitions in categories such as sculpture, painting and music, all tethered to a sporty theme. These days, medals for setting records in the arts tend to be doled out by auction houses—and, awkwardly, it pays to be dead. But in London in 2012 artists and performers will be jockeying for position alongside the world’s finest athletes. Unlike Beijing, which used its games in 2008 to prove its graduation to long trousers, London wants to reaffirm its eminence as an international cultural destination.
Brits could be forgiven for not noticing, but London’s Cultural Olympiad began in 2008, with nationwide events and commissions designed to culminate in a big festival in June-September 2012. In practice this meant little before Tony Hall, head of the Royal Opera House, became involved in 2009 and then anointed Ruth Mackenzie as the Olympiad’s director in early 2010. With some £94m ($147m) to play with, largely from lottery funds, Ms Mackenzie and the festival’s organisers have curated more than 1,000 events, many of them free and aesthetically daring, for an estimated audience of 10m people. Though London will enjoy the lion’s share, the festivities will be spread throughout Britain—a crucial bit of diplomacy given the use of national taxes.
What to see? The most inescapable bit of cultural cool will be Bus-Tops, a public-art installation on the roofs of London bus shelters, designed by Alfie Dennen and Paula Le Dieu. Part of a programme called Artists Taking the Lead, funded by the UK Arts Councils, this is one of 12 commissioned projects throughout the country, one for each region.
Much of the Olympiad is designed to be enjoyed outdoors—rain or shine—to maximise participation. This includes a big, free music event on Hackney Marshes on June 23rd and 24th, courtesy of the BBC and Radio 1. There is also something called Big Dance, a festival of moving and shaking in unexpected places (parks, lidos, shopping centres). Bigger still is a summer-long celebration of performances by disabled and deaf artists called the Unlimited festival.
All 37 plays in 37 different languages
In these grim times for arts funding, many institutions are seeing the benefits of collaboration. Sadler’s Wells and the Barbican are working together for the first time to produce a grand tribute to the career of Pina Bausch, a German choreographer who died in 2009. Then there’s Metamorphosis: Titian 2012, from the Royal Ballet and the National Gallery, based around three Titians, including one important recent acquisition. This project features three new ballets, each inspired by a Titian painting, and several new Titian-influenced works by contemporary artists, including Chris Ofili and Mark Wallinger, which will hang alongside the originals in the museum. Mr Ofili is also one of 12 visual artists commissioned to design posters for the games, along with Tracey Emin, Martin Creed, Bridget Riley and Rachel Whiteread.
To be or not to be, in Lithuanian
Other highlights include “Dr Dee”, a new opera from Damon Albarn of the band Blur, directed by Rufus Norris at the ENO; a rare show of David Hockney’s landscape work at the Royal Academy (January 21st to April 9th); and an exhibition of Lucian Freud’s portraits at the National Portrait Gallery (February 9th to May 27th). Britain’s largest-ever poetry festival, Poetry Parnassus, will take place on the South Bank and feature 205 poets, one from each of the Olympic nations. Then there will be Britain’s biggest piece of public art, Anish Kapoor’s towering, looping, £19.1m ArcelorMittal Orbit near the Olympic park, which people will climb for unparalleled views of the city. Funded mostly by Lakshmi Mittal, a steel magnate who gave £16m and donated the steel (around 1,400 tonnes of it), the tower “would have boggled Gustave Eiffel,” Boris Johnson, London’s mayor, has boasted.
But the jewel in the London 2012 crown promises to be the World Shakespeare Festival, a collaboration of more than 50 arts groups and thousands of performers in a celebration of the bard as “the world’s playwright”. The Royal Shakespeare Company has been working with international troupes to create a roster of new productions, either of or inspired by Shakespeare’s plays. And the open-air Globe theatre on the South Bank will stage a six-week, Babel-flouting programme of all 37 plays in 37 different languages, beginning on April 23rd (Shakespeare’s birthday). This means an “All’s Well That Ends Well” in Gujarati, “The Comedy of Errors” in Dari, “The Merchant of Venice” in Hebrew and a Lithuanian “Hamlet” the critics love. Who better than the bard to highlight London as a global city where more than 250 languages are spoken?
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