by

In the old Greek society sport education and sport competitions were strictly connected with art : music, poetry, sculpture and painting took inspiration from athletic body in movement - we can see it on richly decorated ceramics, on magnificent marble and bronze sculptures, we can imagine it reading Pindar Odes or Homer descriptions of sport contests.

In three Panhellenic Games : in Delphi , Istmia and Nemea there was a rich cultural program except sport competitions.

In Pytian Games in Delphi were organised music competitions for the performance of songs with oboe or guitar, choir performance, tragic or comedy theatre pieces, poetry and prose contests, pantomimes.

Istmian Games in Corinth included music contests, poetry, theatre and painting.

Nemean Games were famous for their musical competitions.

The most famous ancient Games in Olympia were generally sport Games - except trumpeters contest. But in 444 BC Herodotos , the historical writer, was garlanded as well as the winners, and afterwards he got from the City of Athenes 10 talents ( 2200 oxens). Philosophers , politicians and artists were frequent guests in Olympia , because there they had possibility to contact representatives from dispersed Greek world.

Plato, the famous philosopher, was winner in wrestling competition in Nemea and he visited Olympic Games, too.

Ancient sport and art. contests disappeared with the birth of Christianity.

In 1849 Franz Liszt, then director of Weimar theatre, presented to the heir to the throne a project to celebrate the centenary of Goethe’s birth by creating an Olympiade in which all the arts could compete. The Grand Duke was enthusiastic, but afterwards the idea was dropped.

In 1992 Marc Verriere from Paris initiated “Olympic Arts” , later changed to
“Universal Arts”. These Games that should be held in 4 years intervals from 1999, had intention to bring together artists from all over the world ,whose vocation would be to bridge the gap between tangible and intangible by means of artistic creation.

Disciplines were as follows: music, dance, drama, plastic arts, composite works - divided for specific categories,

In 1995, International Council was founded with the participation of 65 countries. In some countries National Councils for Universal Arts were established. Several propositions to host first Art Olympiade was made - Montpellier, Marseille, Warsaw, Marrakech, Johannesburg, Melbourne, Bern , Sophia. Finally the initiative of Marc Verriere was delayed for financial reasons.

Piere de Coubertin revived Olympic Games in 1896 and from the beginning wanted to include artistic competitions as well. He wrote: “Les Olympiades n’ont point pour mission d’exalter la seule puissance musculaire; elles sont intellectuelles et artistiques; elles doivent le devenir en plus. In 1906 he summoned a Consultative Conference in Comedie Fransaise , inviting many illustrious men of culture.

The Conference proposed that IOC should create five contests of architecture, sculpture, music, painting and literature for original works directly inspired by sport, such contests henceforth to become integral part of each Olympiade.

The first Art Competitions were organised in Stockholm in 1912- in spite of many difficulties. Medals were awarded in architecture, music, literature, painting , graphic, sculpture - with 9 participating countries.

In the next contest - in 1920 in Antwerp - participated already 18 countries with 112 submissions. But the general artistic level of the competition was not very high.

Third artistic contest in Paris 1924 was undoubtedly a success. There were 283 submissions from 23 countries. Hungarian golden medalist in swimming during first Olympic Games in Athens, AlfredHajos was awarded silver medal in architecture, thus realising Coubertin’s dream of kalos kagathos.

In 1928 in Amsterdam there were already 1150 works , divided in several categories within 5 arts.

In Los Angelos 1932 participated 24 countries , submitting 1145 works.

In Berlin 1936 there were 73 entries in music an literature and 667 entries in plastic art.

In the last artistic competition in London 1948 participated 27 countries with 440 works - it was after devastating war.

Organisation of Olympic art contests met many difficulties resulted by short time for preparation, lack of understanding between Olympic organisations and artists associations, difficulties with translation of literary works, absence of clear criteria for judges etc. In spite of growing interest and growing number of participants best artists did not take part in art. competitions and their results were mediocre - with some exceptions of course.

Objections appeared, coming mainly from Avery Brundage and Sigfrid Edstrom- that artists are professionals and therefore can not participate in Olympic Games like athletes, who are amateurs ...and that a medal could serve for commercial advertising. It was said during one of IOC Executive Commission meeting , that “…such or such painter having gotten a gold medal in the Olympic Art. Competitions for one of his work benefitted greatly in the selling of his works 5 or 10 times more because he is an Olympic medallist…”

Finally art competitions were replaced by art exhibitions and in the Olympic Games in Helsinki 1952 there was no more contest.

The Olympic Charter states as follows :

This is all about cultural events during Olympic Games in the Olympic Charter; initiative is up to host cities...

The holding of what has become a “festival of art” since Melbourne in 1956 and especially Rome in 1960, requires and draws collaboration between the public communities ( municipal, regional, national ), the existing cultural structures, whether public or private, benefactors and, of course, the OCOG. In the course of successive Olympiads, the festival of arts has varied in several aspects: the duration, which tends to increase, the geographical dispersion or concentration of events, the emphasis placed on the cultural traditions and artistic creativity of the city and country hosting the Games, the required standards of quality, the degree of openness to young talents in relation to the organisation of “grand world premiers”, international openness and intercultural exchanges, the festive dimensions through participatory public events. In sum , the entire spectrum of arts is brought into play and offered to the local and national population, to the athletes and to the visitors.

Festivals of art developed in cultural programme of the Games , interacting with education program and covering all Olympiade, it means 4 years.

The cultural Programme which Athenes proposed in his bid would revolve around four thematic axes: 2001 - man and space; 2002- man and the earth; 2003 - man and the spirit; 2004 man and man. This programme had budget of 30 million USD.

It has been proved that cultural events organised during Olympic Games are no match for sport events and do not attire too much spectators nor mass media coverage. The organisers and sponsors of one of the most interesting exhibition during Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996 “Rings - Five Passions in World Art” complained about lack of interest of visitors, who preferred to crowd sport stadiums. In my opinion it is partly resulted by the fact that olympic audience like contests, like emotions connected with rivalry and if we can ensure this in art competitions, situation can be changed. It is not easy, as the part of “artistic society” doubts if rivalry in art is reasonable.

They also argue that it is impossible to compare and qualify different styles.

There are many doubts about idea to re-introduce olympic art contests to the official Olympic Program. Most of them have their roots in times, when art competitions were stopped, it means 50 years ago. But times have changed and we can verify them.

New questions arise and we can discuss them.

1. Professionalism . Volens nolens IOC had to accept professionalism of olympic competitors because there was a danger that in Olympic Games will compete only second-class amateurs or state - amateurs and consequently world audience, mass media and sponsors will loose their interest in Olympics and Olympic Movement.

Therefore there is no distinct difference now between “amateur status” of top sportsmen and artists - both of them receive good money for good performance .

And it was like that in ancient times : the only reward for winner in Olympia was olive laurel, but afterwards his town bestowed valuable prizes upon him, including life - time pension.

Nowadays we give but medals for winners in each sport category in Olympic Games, but even long before the contest all countries promise big money prizes for those who will win.

In this context the financial upgrading of winning artist is not against up to date olympic ideology. And there are no problems of doping and brutality in art.

2. Artistic level. As olympic sport gathers best sportsmen of the world it is clear, that olympic art should also gather best artists. We must take lesson from the history : why best artists did not participate in olympic art competitions and what shall we do to change this situation? In my opinion the most important thing for an artist is inspiration, technical, logistic and financial question go afterwards. Therefore I am not sure if olympic art contests should be directly connected with sport, as it was stated before. They can be inspired by olympic values like friendship, fair play, rivalry or even by metaphoric expression of movement, speed etc... In my opinion proper formulation of entry conditions are vital for the success of future art contests and should be fixed after many discussions and even tests in form of national competitions.

Very important attraction for best artists should be undoubtedly the possibility of big world audience, it means if their works could be displayed during the Games. The best example are for instance “three tenors” concerts during important sport events. That is why famous artists, philosophers, literary men, poets visited ancient olympia... nihil novi sub sole!

3. Art and competitions. There are opinions that artists should not compete like sportsmen do because in sport there are more or less clear rules and in art. there are different points of view, cultures and prejudices associated with the history,ethnology, aesthetic values and taste, national identity and its relation to human values etc. We can speak about progress in sport ( records) and we can not speak about progress in art. It is all true, but in the same time we see that in the world of art there are many contests and that artists like to compete and that judges can decide who will win. Let us see :

a. In architecture competitions are generally used in order to eliminate the best project to be realised. More over there are contests for realised buildings, for sport buildings for instance we have well known contests organised by IAKS together with IOC.

Except functional , structural and costs evaluations, that have more or less fixed criteria and can be compared to sport judging , aesthetic values of submitted projects are classified by judges on the basis of their personal feelings and experience.

b. In the category of music the most popular competition form are contests for interpretation of famous composers, like Chopin Contest in Warsaw or Czajkowski contest in Moscow.

Less popular, but still existing are contests for musical compositions, like

Serocki contest in Warsaw.

c. Theatre and ballet. There are many theatre festivals where prizes are distributed -both for the best play and the best presentation. There are however some categories, that should be distinguished: classical and modern theatre, gesture theatre, operas and musicals, ballets etc.

d. Literature is perhaps the most difficult art to be compared and judged because of different languages and necessity of translation. But there are many prizes for novels and poetry like prize Goncourt, Nobel prize etc. that demonstrate the possibility of contests.

e. In cinema festivals with prizes are very popular, to mention only Oscar Prize from Academy of Motion Picture since 1931 and many others.

Probably different categories ( normal and short metrage, ) will be necessary.

f. Also in plastic arts we have very well known exhibition : Venice Biennale where prizes in different categories are distributed, and many others.

4. Problems of logistics. It is clear that the introduction of olympic art contests will increase the scope of work for organisers and IOC. But existing art events during Olympic also take much time and money. It is to be discussed if the art contests should be organised during the Games, or before the Games , only in the Olympic Town or in some other towns too. In any case seems logical that awarded pieces of art should be displayed during Games as a part of Olympic Look .

If olympic art contests would be a part of Olympic Games, they would be “exclusive property of CIO” - because the Games are, according to point 11 0f Olympic Charter. All persons and organisers ( also of art competitions) should consequently be submitted to the Olympic Charter ( than changed) and to the decisions of CIO. That will give much extra work to CIO and will result that besides Sport Federations also Artistic Representations should be members of CIO. Another solution is , that art. contests can be done by separate organisation loosely connected with CIO. That is only an example to be discussed.

At the end I am going to tell you why I am saying all that on the First European Meeting of World Olympians Association. In the beginning of new XXI century the olympic sport and Olympic Games are often critisized for commercialisation, gigantism, doping , brutality and bribery. Pretty soon we shall have also problems connected with possibility of biological intervention. The introduction of art contests during olympic games can not diminish these problems, but can give to the olympic movement more humanistic image, outweighing muscular effort by creative spirit.

Many individuals and institution speak about it. I think that nobody would be offended if olympians, the fourth pillar of the Olympic Movement, could propose IOC to start a discussion about possibility to restore Olympic Art Competitions.