London 2012's Coe Becomes Art for Cultural Olympiad

(ATR) There will be no gold medals handed out for artwork inspired by the 2012 Games, but one of Britain's best-known gold medalists will do what he does best in the name of Olympics art later this month.

Sixty years ago, artist Alfred Thomas was the last winner of a Cultural Olympiad gold medal for his painting of the 1948 London Amateur championships.

Later this month, Sebastian Coe, the Olympic 1,500 meters gold medal-winner in 1980 and 1984, now the chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG), will be one of several "well-known sports people" who will run through the Tate Britain gallery as part of the performance artwork by Turner Prize-winner Martin Creed.

It is one of more than 500 events happening Sept. 26-28 across the United Kingdom aimed at giving a taste of the creativity that will be showcased over the coming years in the Cultural Olympiad, which has an operating budget of $80 million.

"It's important that it is over the next four years - we don’t want the 'Wimbledon syndrome' of everyone getting excited for two weeks, picking up a tennis racket and then putting it back in the cupboard for the next four years," Coe said at the launch Thursday, staged in a backstage area of the Royal National Theatre beside the River Thames. The theater, founded by actor Laurence Olivier, has presented performances by all of Britain’s leading stage and screen actors - Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench - over the past 40 years.

It is no surprise, then, that a festival of the works of William Shakespeare will be showcased across the four years in a World Shakespeare Festival. Other longer term projects include 12 community artworks commissioned around the country; a "Festival of Carnivals," five themed carnivals planned for the period of the Games themselves; and a World Cultural Festival in 2012.

"The Cultural Olympiad is at the heart of the Olympic Movement; it was one of the founding principles of Pierre de Coubertin back in 1896 when he mapped that seamless path between sport, education and culture," said Coe, emphasizing that the initial operating fund would be used to stimulate projects and help to release more arts funding during the next four years.

The powerful arts lobby in Britain has been campaigning against the Olympics since London was awarded the Games in 2005, arguing that the $16 billion budget for sport would divert public funds away from already cash-strapped community theatres and galleries.

London's Cultural Olympiad plans seem to have taken on possibly the greatest criticism of the Beijing Games, in terms of getting the event to reach out to people beyond the confines of the main Olympic venues.

Coe said that London's part in the Beijing closing ceremony "kicked off a mass of activity around the country that afternoon involving millions of people." British Olympic minister Tessa Jowell has also promised that the London Olympics opening ceremony will be staged in the streets. "What we want is new ways of thinking about the opening ceremony," she said.

"We want the whole of London to be involved, with different parts of London taking part in the ceremony. The London Games must be deeply democratic, with the city’s citizens feeling they’re intimately involved."

Between now and 2012, the Cultural Olympiad will seek to create that atmosphere throughout Britain, beginning with the launch. "In our bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012, our promise was and still is to make our Games accessible to everyone," Coe said.

"Open Weekend and the cultural program over the coming four years, shows our commitment to this."

As well as Coe’s debut as a work of art, events during the Open Weekend will include a "celebration of song" in the clubs and pubs of Derry, Northern Ireland and a weekend of youth street theater around London’s cultural hub, the South Bank. One of the Queen’s residences, Windsor Castle, and the Blackpool Tower on the Lancashire coast will both feature light shows, with Blackpool offering access to the seaside resort’s famous funfair at 1948 prices. There will also be a mini-Greek Games being staged around Lincoln Cathedral.

And at Weymouth, venue for the sailing regatta in 2012, a "spectacular pyrotechnics, light and sound created by acclaimed Spanish artists Xarxa Theatre, working with young people from Poole, Bournemouth and Weymouth" is promised in an event called "Sea Stories."

Written by Steven Downes

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