Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics Unveil Lineup of Art Posters

Where the aesthetics of sports and the aesthetics of art converge

Tokyo 2020 Poster
The poster designs for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics have been revealed.
Asao Tokolo/Tokyo 2020

Artists and athletes aren’t the most likely pair of occupations. Maybe it’s because it lines up a little too well with the archetypal “nerds versus jocks” conflict; maybe it’s because there are few proper crossover figures between the two. (Notable exceptions: Matthew Barney, Terry Crews.) But along with the buildup to the Olympics on the sports side of the world, there’s also another side to the storied competition: a showcase for work from a host of memorable artists.

The Guardian showcased a gallery of posters recently unveiled for the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics. In the mix were a number of acclaimed artists, photographers and designers — including Chris Ofili, Asao Tokolo and Tomoko Konoike. This year’s Olympics seem to be following the lead of the Games in Rio in 2016, which also abounded with a host of distinctive posters.

For those who happen to be in Tokyo, an exhibit of the posters is currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo through Sunday, February 16th.

A look at the full array of Olympics posters across the years reveals some distinctive names and designs — including Robert Rauschenberg’s work for the 1984 Games, and Rachel Whiteread’s distinctive design for London 2012. That’s not to discount the Winter Games — there’s also a long artistic legacy there, including the way the posters for the 2014 Games in Sochi showcased an homage to Russian artist Kazimir Malevich.

The posters themselves aren’t the only ways in which art and the Olympics overlap. The 2016 Games in Rio abounded with art events happening across the city, prompting Hyperallergic to award their own medals for the work they sawThe Economist was more critical of Beijing’s dearth of interesting art in 2008.

While Olympics posters are a long-running tradition since the inception of the modern version of the games, another tradition hasn’t made it to the present day. A Smithsonian article from 2012 revisited the fact that the Games once gave out medals for cultural feats as well as athletic ones — which is why Walter Winans, who competed in 1908 and 1912, won medals in both shooting and sculpture.

Does your favorite Olympic athlete hold heretofore unseen skills in installation art or epic verse? The world may never know — the Olympics last held cultural competitions over 60 years ago. But who knows what might come from bringing them back; all this talk of the poetry of sports might give way to some actual poetry along the way.

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