Writing / Posted by Rich
I’ll be honest from the start here and state that I’m not really a sports fan. However, when it was announced that the Olympics were to be held in London I was quite pleased. I thought it really exciting that they would be held in the country - and city - in which I lived. As it got closer things started to change; stories surfaced about suggestions that those that live in London should consider moving away for the duration. Seriously? I’ve lived here for over ten years - the Games are happening in my town and you want me to go away? Terribly patronising adverts appeared at stations suggesting that you should work from home or travel to work a different way because of all the expected travel chaos caused by the massive influx of Games-goers. There was also an odd feeling of ‘London won’t cope’ permeating through the media.
As it turned out it coped fine. My partner, who has to travel across the city to London Bridge Station to get to work, saw no real change in the quantity of people, merely in the type; more confused, lost people.
This all put a downer on the build-up to the Olympics, and before it had even started I was getting a little tired of it. And I’ve realised why this was; because it wasn’t the Games themselves. I was tired of seeing all the guff that surrounded the Games: the Orbit, I feel, is a shockingly bad piece of public art. McDonalds was the Official Restaurant? Carling the Official Beer? (We have so much great brewing in this country and you choose Carling?) The big-business tax dodge furore (that was campaigned against and thankfully beaten mostly into submission). I was suffering from severe corporate fatigue and it seemed to be eclipsing the Games.
But then they began, with Danny Boyle’s excellent, surprising, cheeky opening ceremony, and it seemed to kick things back into shape. It was the events and the athletes that were important, and this seemed to have got lost in the build-up. I actually started to enjoy the Olympics, feel quite proud of how well Team GB were doing, and also really get into the great performances from all the nations. There was, of course, the inevitable hyperbole that riles me - commentators describing people as gods and waxing lyrical about how unworthy we are to gaze upon this being and we should fall to our knees in his/her presence etc. but that’s only a small complaint amongst what appeared to me to be the entire country getting behind and supporting this small group of dedicated, skilled and talented people.
And that’s when I started to think about the parallels between artists and athletes. A small group of dedicated, skilled and talented people? Sounds familiar. Sounds like artists. When you really think about it athletes contribute as much to society as artists do. The end results of our endeavours amount to ‘achievements’ - you have run faster than everyone else, you have painted a more beautiful picture than everyone else. These things are subject to various contexts and standards but what we have is a person doing something to the very best of their ability. And this thing is useless in itself other than for the sake of the achievement and the emotion which it can elicit from those watching. Great joy was had watching Mo Farah win the 10,000m - it was exciting, tense, suspenseful and beautiful. It could be great art? Usain Bolt is an event in himself and people want to watch he does. Similarly in the Paralympics Oscar Pistorius and Ellie Simmonds, among many others, provided thrilling and joyous moments.
Now don’t come back at me with the argument about how much money it brings in because that is a ridiculous and demeaning concept. The worth of sport and art is not in how much money it generates: Jessica Ennis’s heptathlon gold is not worth however many Big Macs and Carlings were consumed during her events. In the same way, an experimental piece of theatre is not worth any less than a Shaftsbury Avenue musical - even if all the people that go to that musical buy lots of snacks and novelty souvenirs from the surrounding shops.
The question I am asking is that athletes seem to have a pretty good level of acceptance among the general public yet artists seem to be less well-liked. Why? Both groups have devoured public funding, with the Arts Council only spending a fraction per year of what it took to put on the Olympics, yet people can’t wait to line the streets and scream with joy as a bus rolls past containing Team GB. I’m not saying I want that level of hysteria for artists - that would be silly - but I am intrigued as to what it is that sets us apart? Why is one activity seen as good by a vast majority, and worth all of this time, effort and money purely for the sake of it, and another less so? Perhaps it is about the contest; beating the other competitors and the other countries? The only parallel I can think of would be the various biennials that occur around world, or Documenta and Skulptur Projekte Münster, and although prizes are awarded at some of these events it doesn’t really grab the international interest like the Olympics.
What is it about athletes that captures the imagination, and can we, as artists, harness this somehow and bend public opinion in our favour?