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Abstract
This article examines the role that the London 2012 Festival played in constructing and contesting the 2012 Olympic spectacle by considering two projects proposed by Danish-Icelandic artist, Olafur Eliasson: Take a deep breath and Olafur Eliasson: Little Sun. I propose that the former, which failed to gain funding and never made it onto the Festival line-up, would have produced a ‘counter-spectacle’ to the Olympic spectacle, should it have come to fruition. I contend that the latter, produced at London’s Tate Modern, provided an ‘anti-spectacle’ to the Olympic spectacle. The article considers what the respective ‘failure’ and ‘success’ of these projects begins to unveil about current developments in art, performance and global spectacle. I argue that while both projects aimed to challenge and diffuse the state-centrism of the Olympic Games, they are also indicative of the London 2012 Festival’s legitimisation of spectacle, rather than its contestation.
Notes
1. John J. MacAloon, ‘Olympic Games and the Theory of Spectacle’, in Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle: Rehearsals Toward a Theory of Cultural Performance, ed. by John J. MacAloon (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1984), pp. 241–80 (p. 245).
2. Ruth Mackenzie quoted in Tim Masters, ‘London 2012 Festival Unveils Final Line-Up’, BBC News, 26 April 2012, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17839185> [accessed 17 March 2013].
3. Tony Hall quoted in Tim Masters, ‘London 2012 Festival “Exceeds Expectations”’, BBC News, 10 September 2012, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19545907> [accessed 17 March 2013].
4. MacAloon, ‘Olympic Games and the Theory of Spectacle’, pp. 262–63. MacAloon gives examples of including professionals rather than amateurs and the subsequent celebritisation of these athletes. Such spectacularisation has further coalesced in the celebrity-athletes as character-performers – as seen in signature poses by Usain Bolt (the ‘lightning bolt’) and Mo Farah (the ‘Mobot’).
5. Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, trans. by Ken Knabb (London: Rebel Press, 2005), p. 7.
6. John J. MacAloon, ‘The Theory of Spectacle: Review of Olympic Ethnography’, in National Identity and Global Sports Events: Culture, Politics, and Spectacle in the Olympics and Football World Cup, ed. by Alan Tomlinson and Christopher Young (New York: University of New York, 2006), pp. 15–39 (p. 15).
7. MacAloon, ‘The Theory of Spectacle’, p. 16, emphasis added.
8. MacAloon, ‘Olympic Games and the Theory of Spectacle’, p. 243.
9. Ibid., p. 242.
10. Ibid., p. 262.
11. Ibid., p. 246.
12. Ibid., p. 262.
13. BBC News, ‘Olafur Eliasson Art Project Rejected by Olympics Bosses’, BBC News, 11 April 2012, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17674481> [accessed 8 August 2012].
14. Artfacts.net is a website that ranks artists according to their exhibition profile. Tens of thousands of artists are included on this site, which includes both the living and the deceased. In 2012, Eliasson was ranked at number 22 with regards to global prevalence.
15. Ally Carnwath and others, ‘Top 100 Defining Cultural Moments of the Noughties’, Telegraph, 2009, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/6466684/Top-100-defining-cultural-moments-of-the-00s-noughties.html> [accessed 12 December 2011].
16. Jen Harvie, ‘Agency and Complicity in “A Special Civic Room”: London’s Tate Modern Turbine Hall’, in Performance and the City, ed. by D. J. Hopkins, Shelley Orr and Kim Solga (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 204–21 (p. 209).
17. Madeleine Grynsztejn, ‘(Y)our Entanglements: Olafur Eliasson, the Museum, and Consumer Culture’, in Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson, ed. by Madeleine Grynsztejn (London: Thames & Hudson, 2007), pp. 11–32 (p. 14).
18. Ibid., p.21.
19. Harvie, ‘Agency and Complicity’, p. 204.
20. BBC News, ‘Olafur Eliasson Art Project Rejected by Olympics Bosses’.
21. Olympic Lottery Distributor, Summary Minutes of the 39th Meeting of the Board (London: Olympic Lottery Distributor, 20 October 2011), <http://www.olympiclotterydistributor.org.uk/docs/publications.php?id=5:6:0:0> [accessed 14 March 2013].
22. BBC News, ‘Olafur Eliasson Art Project Rejected by Olympics Bosses’.
23. This is confirmed in the minutes taken from: Olympic Lottery Distributor, Summary Minutes of the 41st Meeting of the Board (London: Olympic Lottery Distributor, 16 February 2012), <http://www.olympiclottery2012.org.uk/docs/publications.php?id=5:8:0:0> [accessed 14 March 2013]. These minutes were first sourced via a hyperlink within the article: BBC News, ‘Olafur Eliasson Art Project Rejected by Olympic Bosses’.
24. The Times reporter Rachel Sylvester cited in Jonathan Jones, ‘Olafur Eliasson’s Olympic Art Is Not a Waste of Money’, Guardian, 12 April 2012, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/apr/12/olafur-eliasson-olympic-art> [accessed 14 March 2013].
25. Louise Eccles, ‘An Olympic Waste of Money! Artist to Be Handed up to £1m to Create London 2012 Artwork … Which Is Just a Load of Hot Air’, Daily Mail, 15 February 2012, <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2100991/London-2012-Olympics-artist-handed-1m-create-global-campfire.html> [accessed 9 August 2012].
26. Eliasson quoted in Eccles, ‘An Olympic Waste of Money!’.
27. Personal email between the author and Anna Engberg-Pedersen, Head of publications, communications and archive at Studio Olafur Eliasson, dated 22 May 2013.
28. Ibid.
29. BBC News, ‘Olafur Eliasson Art Project Rejected by Olympics Bosses’.
30. Olympic Lottery Distributor, Summary Minutes of the 41st Meeting of the Board, emphasis in original.
31. Olympic Lottery Distributor, Summary Minutes of the 39th Meeting of the Board.
32. It should be noted here that while the Summary Minutes of the 41st Meeting of the Board state that: ‘Board Members expressed concern that this particular commission had changed significantly since its inception’; this is perhaps with regards to a pre-conceived specification of what the OLD were looking to fund (i.e. an outdoor piece) rather than what Eliasson had proposed. In a personal email between the author and Anna Engberg-Pedersen, Engberg-Pedersen maintains, on behalf of Olafur Eliasson Studio, that ‘[t]he subject of Olafur’s project for the Olympics stayed fixed from its inception around January 2011’.
33. This is evidenced both in the statement made by Emma Boon from the TaxPayer’s Alliance (though it must be noted that this Lottery money is not from taxpayers) as well as commenting online readers. See Eccles, ‘An Olympic Waste of Money!’.
34. Personal email between the author and Anna Engberg-Pedersen, 22 May 2013.
35. MacAloon, ‘Olympic Games and the Theory of Spectacle’, p. 243.
36. Jones, ‘Olafur Eliasson’s Olympic Art Is Not a Waste of Money’.
37. MacAloon, ‘Olympic Games and the Theory of Spectacle’, p. 246.
38. See, for example, Andy Denwood, ‘London 2012: Olympic Games Legacy Promises Under Fire’, BBC News, 8 November 2011, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15490995> [accessed 17 June 2013].
39. Little Sun, ‘Art’, 2012, <http://www.littlesun.com/index.php?sec=art> [accessed 18 March 2013].
40. There have been over 10,000 light graffiti contributions; these can be found on the Little Sun website: <http://lightgraffiti.littlesun.com/> [accessed 18 March 2013].
41. Tate, ‘Olafur Eliasson: Little Sun’, 2012, <http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/olafur-eliasson-little-sun> [accessed 7 September 2012].
42. James Lachno, ‘Olafur Eliasson Launches Little Sun Project and Tate Blackouts at Tate Modern’, Telegraph, 12 July 2012, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/9395022/Olafur-Eliasson-launches-Little-Sun-project-and-Tate-Blackouts-at-Tate-Modern.html> [accessed 9 August 2012].
43. Ruth Mackenzie quoted in Lachno, ‘Olafur Eliasson Launches Little Sun Project’.
44. Jacques Rogge quoted in Allan Massie, ‘London Olympics 2012: The Olympic Values of Fair Play and Sportsmanship Are Stamped Made in Britain’, Telegraph, 30 July 2012, <http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/allanmassie/100065451/london-olympics-2012-the-olympic-values-of-fair-play-and-sportsmanship-are-stamped-made-in-britain/> [accessed 18 June 2013].
45. MacAloon, ‘Olympic Games and the Theory of Spectacle’, p. 252.
46. Eliasson quoted in Lachno, ‘Olafur Eliasson Launches Little Sun Project’.
47. Tate, ‘Little Sun Torch’, Tate Online Shop, 2012, <http://shop.tate.org.uk/artist-products/little-sun-torch/invt/13670/> [accessed 8 September 2012].
48. BBC News, ‘Tate Modern to Be Plunged into Darkness’, BBC News, 12 July 2012, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18815348> [accessed 16 June 2013].
49. Quoted in Synnøve Marie Vik, ‘The Politics of Nature: An Inquiry of the Politics of Aesthetics in between the Sublime and Relational in Olafur Eliasson’s Installations’ (unpublished thesis, University of Bergen, Bergen, 2009), p. 68.
50. Slavoj Žižek, ‘RSA – First as Tragedy, Then as Farce’, RSA, 2010, <http://www.thersa.org/events/video/archive/slavoj-zizek-first-as-tragedy,-then-as-farce> [accessed 8 September 2012].
51. Personal email between the author and Geoffrey Garrison of Studio Olafur Eliasson, 9 October 2013.
52. Olafur Eliasson quoted in Roslyn Sulcas, ‘Olafur Eliasson Brings Sunlight Back to Tate Modern’, New York Times, 12 July 2012, <http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/olafur-elaisson-brings-sunlight-back-to-tate-modern/> [accessed 4 April 2013].
53. Julian Stallabrass, Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 17.
54. Jacques Rancière cited in Daniel Birnbaum, ‘Heliotrope’, in Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson, ed. by Madeleine Grynsztejn (London: Thames & Hudson, 2007), pp. 131–43 (p. 137).
55. MacAloon, ‘Olympic Games and the Theory of Spectacle’, p. 265.