International Journal of Cultural PolicyVol. 14, No. 4, November 2008, 361–376

ISSN 1028-6632 print/ISSN 1477-2833 online© 2008 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/10286630802445849http://www.informaworld.com

One hundred years of cultural programming within the Olympic Games (1912–2012): origins, evolution and projections

Beatriz Garcia*

School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UKTaylor and Francis LtdGCUL_A_344752.sgm10.1080/10286630802445849International Journal of Cultural Policy1028-6632 (print)/1477-2833 (online)Original Article2008Taylor & Francis1440000002008BeatrizGarciaemail@beatrizgarcia.net

The Olympic Games is recognised worldwide as the largest sports mega-event –certainly, the event attracting the largest amount of media coverage globally. As well asa sports event, the Olympics are a cultural phenomenon, with a history spanning morethan 100 years and supported by a global network of organisations with an educationaland intercultural remit that defines itself as a Movement and aspires to promoteOlympism as a ‘philosophy of life’, headed by the International Olympic Committee.What is less known is that the Games also incorporate 100 years of Olympic cultural andarts programming and that such experience is playing a growing role defining orcontributing to respective host cities’ cultural policies. This paper offers an overview ofthe cultural dimension of the Olympic Games and the development of Games-specificcultural programming. After an introductory section providing a discussion andframework to the notion of cultural policy-making within the Olympic Games, the paperpresents an historical account of ‘official’ Olympic cultural programming, in the summereditions of the Games, from the initial conception by Pierre de Coubertin in 1906 up tothe last implementations on occasion of the Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008Games. The paper ends with a brief revision of the current challenges and prospects thatthe programme, now denominated by the Cultural Olympiad and spanning over fouryears, holds within the Olympic Movement and for future host cities such as London inthe lead to 2012.

Keywords: Olympic Games; cultural policy; cultural Olympiad; Olympic culturalprogramme

Cultural policy within the Olympic Games

The production of cultural value in the Olympic Games

By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the quadrennial celebration of the OlympicGames is considered to be the greatest peacetime event on earth. Moragas (1992) argues thatthe global scope the Games have achieved cannot be understood without considering theirclose relation and dependence on their media stakeholders and their ability to accelerate theproduction and communication of cultural value. Thus, ‘the promotion and selection of valuesdeveloped through a complex communication production process – signs, rituals, images,mise en scène, advertising, information – is the principal cultural – and political – responsi-bility of the Olympic Games staging process’ (1992, p. 17, Catalan in the original).

This impression is reinforced by Klausen in his research on the Lillehammer 1994Winter Games. Klausen explains how the large-scale media coverage of the event made theNorwegian government realise the cultural potential of the Games beyond the sportingcompetitions:

*Email: email@beatrizgarcia.net

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… the main scope of the Games was now formulated metaphorically as ‘a showcase of modernNorwegian society’. The cultural dimension became very important, both in the sense ofculture as artistic activities and in the sense of culture as identity and way of life. (1999, p. 3)

The statements by Moragas and Klausen corroborate the claim that a major event can be agood promotional tool for the local host and a vehicle for the implementation of culturalpolicy strategies (Garcia 2004a, 2004b). However, Berkaak (1999) notes that there is animportant challenge in this process; that is, the production of values and symbols represent-ing a host culture to the world must consider two different interpretation dimensions. First,there is the local and national impact and appreciation of the image that is selected by theevent organisers. Second, there is its international and global interpretation (pp. 49–74).Berkaak quotes a paragraph from the official newsletter of the Lillehammer 1994 Games,to exemplify this dialectic:

An Olympic event is an opportunity to be focused on – with an assured benefit … We have alot to show the world and a lot we can point to and proudly say is typically Norwegian. Thiswe can do standing upright and erect, without losing ourselves in our own reflection in thewindow-pane. The glass is transparent. It allows us to see from the inside and the outside. Itprovides us with an opportunity to see ourselves with the eyes of strangers. We can discoverour blind spots, our way of life and culture. … The sooner we start on this introspective taskthe sooner we will be able to choose which aspects we want to emulate, which we wantto change, and which we want to retain as they are. (Offisiell Leverandor published by theLillehammer Olympic Organising Committee, cited in Berkaak 1999, p. 68)

Moragas (1992) notes that the local acceptance of a particular set of cultural valuesrequires a complex interaction process among influential host-city institutions. Normally,this involves the organisation in charge of producing the Games or ‘Organising Committeefor the Olympic Games’ (OCOG), public administration bodies, private corporations andpolitical and civic groups. At this stage, the main objective is typically to summarise thepolitical and cultural personality of the host country in a way that is both representative inthe eyes of the local community and easy to understand by foreigners. Nevertheless, once alocal agreement is reached, the aspiration to transform this exercise into a global statementwill require the involvement of the international media. Indeed, from the moment when themedia take on the role to interpret and transmit this constructed image to the world, thehost city loses control of the communication process. Consequently, the global character ofthe Games, which has the ability to put the host city on the international communicationagenda, offers as many possibilities for the local–national promotion of its image, as itincreases the risk of local, national and international misunderstandings, criticism andrejection.

In an effort to avoid international misunderstandings and to keep as much control aspossible on the media interpretation and transmission of the city’s socio-cultural briefing,the host cultural policy-makers will tend to define their local culture on the basis of mediaproduction mechanisms. As such, the focus will be on those identity signs more suitable foraudio-visual expression. Moragas states that the features and attractions of the local culturecan only be successfully displayed if they are presented in an organised and schematicmanner within the complex communication network of the Olympic Games:

… the question is to synthesise a complex reality in an image consisting of the adequateattributes […] All cultures own some ‘brand images’ resulting from history, prior touristpromotional strategies or the universal success of some of its more representative features.However the celebration of the Olympic Games also represents an historic opportunity to

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reconstruct and renovate certain pertinent characteristics [which may be out-dated] or haveresulted from situations of politico-cultural domination. (1992, p. 32, Catalan in the original)

Typically, the issues deemed to be more representative or appropriate to showcase the hostculture will be selected and those considered to be negative or misleading will be rejected.The selection process will also be conditioned by what can better suit the media productionprocess. Moragas (1992, pp. 30–33) lists the elements included in the strategy for theconstruction of the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games image as follows:

● selection of cultural values which already have an international projection;● use of samples from different arts manifestations (painting, sculpture, architecture,

music, cinema, video);● selection of buildings and monuments representing sporting and Olympic architecture

complemented by both civil and religious emblematic city examples; and● selection of popular culture and folklore together with economic and technology

features, and some personal city representation.

Moragas adds that these examples are indicative of the ways a ‘semantic field’ is constructedin order to promote a city internationally, according to the selection and simplification crite-ria of any advertising strategy (1992, p. 33). These advertising strategies will becomenational and international campaigns with different emphases depending on their specifictarget audience and timing. National campaigns will tend to focus on obtaining the approval,pride and sense of belonging of the population in regard to the Olympic project, while inter-national campaigns will share similar characteristics to the promotion of ‘films, songs ortourist offers’ (p. 34). As such, Moragas concludes that, ‘the Olympic Games are a laboratoryof incalculable value to understand the logic behind the commercialisation of nowadaysculture’ (1992, p. 34) and, we could add, the framing of an internationally projected urbancultural policy.

Olympic values, transmission of culture and commercialisation

The term ‘commercialisation’ leads to a reflection on an intrinsic danger of the processeslisted above. An excess of commercialisation of values may result in an impoverished defi-nition of the local culture, which is based exclusively on elements easily adapted andappealing to the media but not representative of the host community. For example, the focuson cultural components that are easy to represent through the media may prevent the inclu-sion of less ‘visual’ cultural values such as literary, oral and other community traditions.This problem became evident in the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games, after the widely reportedsuccess of the Barcelona 1992 Olympics in promoting the city and its cultural valuesaccording to city marketing strategies.

In Atlanta, the implementation of an image strategy became a difficult exercise becausethe city did not have the same ‘architectural sophistication’ as Barcelona (Turner 1996,p. 4). The fascination brought by the Barcelona value production strategy made most ofAtlanta cultural leaders and population sceptical about their ability to position their city’surban landscape of shopping malls, interstates and skyscrapers in a truly appealing andrepresentative way. In this regard, Dana White, an Atlanta history expert at Emory Univer-sity criticised that ‘it’s kind of cheapening of a culture to try to capture a complex culturein a few words’ (cited in Turner 1996, p. 4). In contrast, Maria Luisa Albacar, head of theforeign relations for Turisme de Barcelona, wondered about, ‘the rest of the world, what

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will it make of Atlanta? Will it ever want to come back? What kind of product will you be?’(Roughton 1996, p. 9). Albarcar was advising Atlanta on how to use the Games to positionthe city as a tourist destination. She would insist that the most important question was ‘Youhave to create a product. You can invent one’ (p. 9).

The anthropological and cultural theory approach of Martin Klausen and his team inNorway has become a relevant source for contrasting the opportunities and dangers thatcultural policy-makers must face in the context of the Olympic Games (see Klausen 1999).Berkaak (1999) discusses the way in which the Olympic ideology and its symbolic repertoirefits within the logic of the market and warns against the reductionist effects that can resultfrom intertwining symbolic interpretative frames with pragmatic ones. The author refers tothe change of orientation of the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement, from thehumanistic ideals of its founder, Baron Pierre de Coubertin (see Carl Diem Institute 1966),to the economic and pragmatic motivations of the IOC president at the time, Juan AntonioSamaranch. In Berkaak’s words, this has resulted in an Olympic discourse characterised bythe coexistence of two seemingly opposite orientations:

the hedonism of the festival and the pragmatics of the political arena and the market place ….The symbolic and artistic elements, the ‘signifying materials of a culture’ have clearly becomeinstrumental in a way that is … typical of all promotional culture. (1999, p. 63)

Consequently, during the 1994 Lillehammer Games:

It became quite legitimate to evaluate cultural forms and performances in terms of theirpotential to attract customers and secure contract partners … and not to see them simply asexpressions of inherent identity. … The athletic achievements and the festive aspects of theOlympic events were meant to catch and hold the attention of the world and direct the ‘eye ofthe world’ to Norway, not just as a nation, but as a tourist destination and a production site, or,more generally, as a commodity. (p. 65)

Again, this suggests that the Games – as much as other large-scale international events –offer as many opportunities as challenges to implement and promote the cultural policy ofthe host city. The visions of policy-makers must be balanced with those of event sponsors,tourism boards, trade organisations and so on, which have agendas that are, at times, incompetition with the priorities of the city’s cultural leaders. This makes a case for exploringwhich are the most obvious sources for the implementation of cultural policy choices withinan event such as the Olympic Games.

Sources for cultural policy-making within the Olympic Games

In the context of the Games, Moragas (2001) has argued that the cultural policy options ofthe host organisers should be focused on constructing the values and symbols of the eventto ensure the coherence of its cultural dimension:

The Olympic Games, in contrast with what is common in other mega-events, demand the hostorganisers to develop a programme where most of its components are fully defined. The sport-ing competitions, the organisation and management structures, but also the Games rituals, areall objects that have been pre-planned and are subject to guidelines increasingly controlled anddetailed by the International Olympic Committee … Nevertheless, the host city has a wideautonomy in the creation of one of the key aspects of the event preparations: the culturalprogramme and the event symbolic production … Thus, in order to ‘win the Games’ it is neces-sary to start by appropriately interpreting its cultural dimension. This interpretation requires thedevelopment of [five] fundamental axis: (1) know how to define and interpret the event – the

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Olympic Games – understanding it as a cultural phenomenon; (2) find the appropriate positionfor the local and global audience of the event; (3) develop a cultural programme that definesthe host-city identity – ceremonies, Cultural Olympiad, street celebrations; (4) establish acommunication policy, in particular in regards to television; (5) new challenges in the Internetera. (Spanish in the original)

Building on this and related discussions, we can suggest the following list as possiblesources of cultural value production within the Games staging process:

● The promotional strategy for the Games and ‘brand image’ of the host city: Thisincludes the construction of city marketing strategies, including the synthesis ofattractive features for promotion, among others.

● The ‘symbols’ of the Games and the Olympic Movement: This includes the logo andemblem of each Games, the mascots, all merchandising materials and commercialapplications of those symbols (e.g., accessories, clothing, and decorations); theOlympic posters, the corporate design or ‘look of the Games’ (including pictograms,Olympic buildings design, staff uniforms, stationery design, publications design andso on) and other symbols such as the traditional Olympic numismatics (stamps andcoins), Olympic slogans and Olympic songs.

● The Olympic ceremonies and rituals: This includes both the opening and closingceremonies which are considered the peak event of the Games in terms of publicawareness and interest and has become the most viewed event in the world due toglobal TV coverage; the torch relay, which is one of the greater Olympic experiencesin terms of public participation and community interest; and finally, the medal cere-monies which involve the podium, raising of winners national flags and nationalhymns.

● Finally, the cultural activities programme: This refers to the organisation of specialcultural and arts events prior to and during the Olympic period. This is the least regu-lated of all the areas listed here and, as discussed below, it is becoming an area ofopportunity for the implementation of distinct cultural policies.

These elements contribute to the creation of a determined image of the host-city cultureand its approach to the Games celebrations. Furthermore, they are a powerful source forthe transmission of values and identity signs that can assist in promoting the host city’scultural policy choices among the international media. For example, the choice of mascotdesign, Olympic emblem and the look of the Games in Barcelona was aimed at reflect-ing the contemporary, stylised and design-loving character of the city. However, it couldbe argued that many of these elements can flatten the host’s values and images. This isthe case for logos, slogans and merchandising materials that are designed as marketingand advertising tools with a strong commercial focus but without a clear cultural andsymbolic dimension. Further, the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, while offer-ing great opportunities for the showcasing and representation of a host city’s culture,have become such a restricted media-bound exercise that it often fails to achieve so.Their large-scale, strict time concentration, and ever-growing dependence on televisiondemands tend to transform such ceremonies into gigantic spectacles where the surprisefactor and the scale of components seem far more relevant than the meaning and consis-tency of the cultural discourse being presented (see MacAloon 1996, Garcia and Miah2000). As noted by MacAloon, what is presented in an Olympic ceremony needs toreach a universal audience in a simultaneous framework and needs to be easily transmit-ted and interpreted through the media. As such, the event must be committed ‘to be

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internationally sensitive to very different cultures and to avoid offending highly diverseand highly politicised social and cultural groups’ (1996, pp. 39–40). Moreover, this tendsto the ‘regular production of historically deracinated, abstract and culturally neuteredrepresentations … of Olympic rituals’ and leads to simplistic interpretations by thepublic.

In contrast, among this ensemble of value production sources, there is a component thatcould be a source for more complex, sophisticated and representative messages about thehost cultural identity and policy choices. This component is the cultural programme of theOlympic Games, which, from Barcelona 1992 onwards, has been implemented as a four-year event or Cultural Olympiad. The latter has offered host cities greater chances to developconsistent cultural policy initiatives and build up longer term strategies to promote and expandawareness of the host city and national idiosyncrasies. However, there are also argumentsthat question the relevance of organising a separate or additional ‘cultural programme’ topresent the host-city cultural identity, noting that the Games are indeed a cultural event inthemselves.

The Olympic Games as a cultural event

Traditionally, the existence of a cultural programme within the Olympic Games has beenunderstood as a complement to the sporting components. This is the result of a conceptionof two separate entities, ‘sports plus culture’, which comes from the founder of theModern Games, Pierre de Coubertin (Monreal 1997). This conception is currentlysustained by the Olympic Charter, the main policy document of the IOC, where it is statedthat the Olympic Movement is composed of three differentiated strings, ‘sport, culture andeducation’ (IOC 2007, p. 11). Authors such as Good (1998) have also supported the ideaof a contrast between sport, education and culture by identifying them with the traditionalGreek concept of the balance between the body (sport), mind (education) and soul(culture). The tradition of understanding these three concepts as separate entities – even ifthe expressed aspiration of the IOC is to ‘blend’ them during Games time – explains thelow levels of interaction taking place between the programmes created to sustain themduring the Olympic Games celebration. The problem is one of conception as well as poorimplementation.

Rather than separate identities that must be ‘blended’, sport, culture and educationshould be seen as dimensions of the very same principle. The sports and recreation scienceliterature understands sport as a cultural manifestation and an activity through whicheducation takes place. Thus, it is not possible to understand the concept of sport or Olym-pic sport, without reference to the concepts of culture and education (Blake 1996, Horne etal. 1999). For this reason, the concept of a cultural programme separated from the sportingand educative programmes seems to be redundant. One would expect all of them to beintegrated and perceived accordingly by everybody involved within the Olympic experi-ence, from athletes to coaches, organisers and spectators. However, the lack of an inte-grated sporting cultural discourse, perceived as such by average Olympic audiences andpromoted as such by Olympic organisers, supporters and media, reveals that the idea of aperfect and evident integration of these concepts within people’s minds is far from being areality.

Moragas (1992) corroborates the argument that culture and sport are intrinsic andinseparable components of the Games. In his view, there are two aspects in the culturaldimension of the Olympic Games that must be observed. In the first place, the OlympicGames are a cultural phenomenon, and thus more significant than an opportunity to

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implement cultural or other activities alongside the sports competitions. Second, the targetaudience of the Olympic Games, as a cultural event, is the entire Games audience, bothlocal and international, direct and mediated (p. 11). This is why it is critical to distinguishbetween the content and scope of the Olympic cultural programme or Cultural Olympiadfrom what could be defined as the Games cultural project in general.

If the Cultural Olympiad consists of a programme to promote cultural activities for theOlympiad period, and it is fundamentally destined to host citizens and surroundings, or thosewho travel expressly to the host city during Games time, then we should say that we are onlyconsidering a part, and very limited, of the Games cultural project. The cultural project mustbe understood in a wider sense, as all expressions of value production updated through the massmedia not only dedicated to the public opinion in the host city but also to the internationalpublic opinion. (Moragas 1992, p. 12)

Moragas advocates that understanding the Games as a cultural event should lead to thecreation of consistent cultural policies throughout the event preparations and that thiswould help to avoid the dangers of excessive commercialism and reductionism in the trans-mission of meanings and values. This argument identifies some of the weaknesses of thecurrent processes to stage the Olympic Games, where the emphasis on marketing andglobal business strategies is overshadowing the idea of a humanistic movement with theideal of peace and universal understanding as its reason of being. However, as argued byGarcia (2001, 2004, in press), the cultural programme of the Games or Cultural Olympiadmight have a specific and significant role to play as a distinguished element of the Games.This role could be understood as the balanced representation of the host city and culturenot only to local audiences, but to international public opinion. Thanks to the lack of strictOlympic regulations and the freedoms that local hosts may take in shaping this aspect ofthe Games, the official Olympic cultural programme offers a context through which itshould be possible to synthesise the commercial aspects of the Games with their culturalpolicy ambitions, thus reinforcing the notion of the Games as a cultural event. This poten-tial is explored in the following sections, which dissect the foundations, definitions andcurrent purpose of the official Olympic Cultural programme.

Olympic cultural programming: origins and evolution

Origins: the ideal role of cultural events in the Olympic Games

The idea of presenting a culture and art programme within the Olympic Games is embed-ded in the very foundations of the Olympic Movement. Hanna describes that in theAncient Games, ‘athletes, philosophers, scholars, poets, musicians, sculptors and high-profile leaders displayed their talents, in what de Coubertin called the spirit of Olymp-ism’ (1999, p. 109). Olympism was often defined by de Coubertin as the simultaneoustraining of the human body and the cultivation of the intellect and spirit, together viewedas manifestations of the harmoniously educated man. Upon this basis, de Coubertin’sdream was to create an environment in modern society where artists and athletes couldagain be mutually inspired. From this, it can be concluded that de Coubertin brought theOlympic Games back to life hoping to develop an internationally recognised marriagebetween art and sport. In support of this ambition, the Olympic Charter establishes that‘blending sport with culture and education’ is a fundamental principle of Olympism (IOC2007, p. 11).

The ability of de Coubertin to coordinate and attract the attention of critical decision-makers around the world led to the re-birth of the Games in 1896, Athens, and to their

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continuation in 1900, Paris, and 1904, St Louis. Nevertheless, none of these Games incor-porated arts alongside the sporting events. In order to encourage a reflection on this situa-tion and change the pattern, the Baron convened a ‘Consultative conference on Art,Letters and Sport’ (Brown 1996) at the Comedie Française in Paris, 1906. De Coubertininvited artists, writers and sports experts to discuss how the arts could be integrated intothe modern Olympic Games. The invitation stated that the purpose of the meeting was tostudy ‘to what extent and in what form the arts and letters could take part in the celebra-tion of modern Olympic Games and become associated, in general, with the practice ofsports, in order to profit from them and ennoble them’ (Carl Diem Institute 1966, p. 16).As a result of the conference and in order to ensure the association of the arts with sports,de Coubertin decided to establish an arts competition that was to be part of each OlympicGames celebration (IOC 1997, p. 92). This competition was called the ‘Pentathlon ofMuses’ and would award medals in the categories of sculpture, painting, music, literatureand architecture.

In order to prepare the first ‘Pentathlon of Muses’, a commission was set up by theOlympic Organising Committee of the host city that was going to stage the followingGames, London 1908. Nevertheless, time constraints and disagreement over contentrestrictions provoked the cancellation of the ‘Pentathlon’ at a late stage (Burnosky 1994, pp.21–22). The idea of an Olympic arts competition was therefore not implemented until theStockholm Games in 1912.

Evolution of the Olympic cultural programme: from competitions to exhibitions and Cultural Olympiads1

From 1912 in Stockholm until 1948 in London, arts competitions were organised inparallel to the sporting competitions, and artists, like athletes, competed and won gold,silver and bronze medals (Stanton 2000, Gold and Revill 2007). However, regulations andcontest parameters changed considerably due to difficulties in defining the differentcompetition sections and disagreement in defining the most appropriate subject for theworks presented. Over the years, the competition’s sections changed from the five areascomposing the ‘Pentathlon of Muses’ to a long list of sub-categories. Moreover, the appro-priate theme for Olympic artworks was also a controversial area as it was discussedwhether or not to restrict the entries to works inspired in or portraying sports activities.Initially, it was compulsory to present a sporting theme, but this proved difficult and limit-ing in areas other than architecture or design for sports buildings (Burnosky 1994, p. 23).Also problematic was the non-universal or localised nature of the arts competitions, asmost judges and competitors were European and it was very rare that non-western artistswere awarded a medal (Burnosky 1994, Good 1998, Hanna 1999). Other problems wererelated to transport difficulties, inconsistent support from respective Organising Commit-tees for the Olympic Games and many limitations resulting from the regulation of amateur-ism in the Olympic Movement. The latter implied that, as in the case of athletes at thetime, the participation of professional artists could not be accepted. In an arts context, thiswas particularly problematic because all artists were considered professional in their devo-tion to their vocation (Hanna 1999, p. 108, referring to an IOC document from the 44thIOC Session in Rome, 1949).

Hanna adds that perhaps most disappointing was the poor audience participationinvoked by the arts competitions. In her words, ‘Cultural celebrations based on sport wereincreasingly irrelevant; people watch[ed] sport in real competitions, but their interest did notextend to sport in art’ (1999, p. 108).

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This was a remarkable failure in the context of de Coubertin’s ideals, as a major reasonfor holding cultural events alongside the sports competitions was the possibility to inspirediscussion and the promotion of ideas among all Olympic participants and spectators. In thiscontext, it is interesting to see that, in contrast with other host cities where Olympic artsmanifestations had played a minor role, the so-called ‘Nazi Games’ of Berlin 1936 staged acultural festival of unprecedented size and nature for which, as indicated in the BerlinGames official report, an ambitious publicity campaign was created:

Because of the slight interest which the general public had hitherto evidenced in the OlympicArt Competition and Exhibition, it was necessary to emphasise their cultural significance to theOlympic Games through numerous articles in the professional and daily publications as wellas radio lectures. (The XIth Olympic Games Berlin 1936, Official Report cited in Good 1998,p. 19)

In this case, the Olympic art programme, which was closely linked to the implementationof new and spectacular rituals such as the first modern Olympic torch relay, was used as apropaganda tool for the German National Socialists. Large sculptures, new musical compo-sitions and the production of the epic film masterpiece ‘Olympia’ by Leni Riefenstahl allbecame memorable outcomes of the 1936 Olympic arts programme.

The 1940 and 1944 Olympic Games and related arts competitions were not held becauseof Second World War. At the time when the Games were re-established in London 1948,the organising committee succeeded in paralleling the sports with arts competitions.Remarkably, after the cultural programme ended, the British Fine Arts Committee that hadbeen set up on occasion of the Games compiled a ‘report of juror’s suggestions for futurearts contests’ (p. 33). This was intended for use as a guide to organising future arts compe-titions (Good 1998, p. 20). Good explains that ‘the recommendations included reducing thenumber of arts categories’ and concluded that the ‘interest in the exhibitions would begreater if they were more closely linked up with the Games themselves and if a moreintensive press campaign had been organised’ (p. 20).

By 1950, the problems and difficulties noted above were perceived to be far greater thanthe benefits and achievements brought by the Olympic art competitions. To review the situ-ation, an extended discussion process took place within the IOC from 1949 in Rome to 1952in Helsinki. As a result of this controversial process, which involved a detailed assessmentof the ‘amateur’ nature of Olympic contributions, it was decided that from 1952 on, thepresence of the arts in the Olympics would take the form of cultural exhibitions and festivalsinstead of competitions.

The first official Olympic arts festival was held at the Melbourne 1956 Games. Thefestival was coordinated first by the Fine-Arts Subcommittee, elected in 1953 and then bythe Festival Sub-Committee created in 1955. The festival had two major components: oneof visual arts and literature, and another one of music and drama. Hanna describes that‘exhibitions and festivals were staged simultaneously in the weeks leading up to and duringthe Games and featured local, national and international artists and performers’ (1999,p. 76). A special book on Australian arts was published after the Games, entitled The ArtsFestival: A Guide to the Exhibition with Introductory Commentaries on the Arts in Australia(Good 1998, p. 29). The Official Report of the Melbourne Games concluded that ‘thechange from a competition to a Festival was widely welcomed, since the Festival provideda significant commentary on Australia’s contribution to the Arts’ (p. 29).

However, after Melbourne, successive cities had very different approaches to the culturalcomponent of the Games either in length, organisation, objectives or themes. Moreover,despite the changes, most Olympic arts committees found similar problems to the ones found

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by organisers from 1912 to 1948. In this regard, Good (1998, p. 31) argues that the shift fromcompetitions to exhibitions did not increase awareness about the art festivals because it didnot study or analyse the ‘management issues’ that had been repeatedly raised in the officialreports of prior Games. Moreover, these problems might have been accentuated by theabsence of an international arts organisation comparable to the sports’ international federa-tions in its ability to coordinate and support Olympic arts initiatives (Masterton cited in Good1998, p. 30). Arguably, the latter point could be seen as the reason why the evolution of theGames cultural programmes has been so variable and unstable since its origins. Recentattempts to address this gap (see reference to the Cultural Olympiad Foundation below) havefailed to fully materialise.

Despite these ongoing issues, successive host cities, particularly in 1968, Mexico,and from Munich 1972 onwards, became more and more ambitious in their treatment ofthe arts festivals, progressively aligning them with the ‘growing arts agenda’ that devel-oped after the Second World War including an aspiration to address ‘audience develop-ment, access, and inclusion’ (Gold and Revill 2007, p. 73). This process has been evenmore evident in the 1980s and 1990s with the growth of urban cultural policy strategiesand ‘culture-led regeneration’ initiatives within which major events and, indeed, theOlympic Games, have played a central role (see Garcia 2004a, 2004b, Gold and Revill2007).

This process peaked with a further development in the concept of Olympic culturalprogramming, proposed in the Barcelona 1992 Bid documents and implemented for the firsttime by this city. Barcelona set a new precedent by establishing the model of the CulturalOlympiad, a programme for cultural celebrations that lasted the four years separating theprevious Olympic Summer Games in Seoul 1988 from the Games to be hosted in the cityin 1992. Guevara (1992) has explained this ambitious decision by referring to the organis-ers’ strategic intention to use the Games to improve the city’s urban landscape and assist inits international projection far beyond the Games staging period.

The four-year format has been sustained by all subsequent summer Olympic host cities,from Atlanta 1996 up to London 2012. This format has provided greater opportunities fordeveloping sustained cultural policy initiatives but, notably, as discussed in the followingsection, it has also brought further challenges to organisers. In Athens, the concept of aCultural Olympiad was placed at a prime position within the event hosting process as thecity celebrated the contribution of Greece and Greek heritage as the cradle of Europeancivilisation and the birthplace of the Olympic Games. The cultural programme was utilisedas a platform to convey ancient Olympic values and claim ownership of the Games in waysnot accessible to other Olympic hosts. This involved the promotion of the Olympic Truce2

as a particularly important component of the Olympiad and the establishment of a CulturalOlympiad Foundation, with the aim to become a permanent institution to coordinate Olym-pic cultural programming in the same way that the IOC coordinates the sporting programme(see http://www.cultural-olympiad.org.gr/). At the time of writing, eight years on from theestablishment of this institution, the role of this foundation remains unclear, providing yetanother indication of the persistent challenges embedded within the Olympic culturalprogramme tradition.

The Olympic programmes for Beijing 2008 and London 2012 do also incorporate aCultural Olympiad. In Beijing, this has taken the form of ‘Olympic Cultural Festivals’taking place over a month each year from 2003 to 2008 – so, over a six-year period (seehttp://en.beijing2008.cn/culture/festivals/). In London, the Cultural Olympiad will start atthe end of September 2008 and will involve a nation-wide programme of activities up to2012.

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Current issues and projections for the Olympic cultural programme

Management and promotion of Olympic cultural programmes

The changeable nature of the Olympic cultural programme has been studied by Guevara(1992) through a comparative analysis of the cultural component of the Olympic Gamesfrom Mexico 1968 to Barcelona 1992. Guevara points out the radical differences shown byrespective Games’ organising committees in their commitment towards the arts. Thesedifferences are evident in the wide variations in terms of length, management structures,objectives, as well as themes and artistic programming. This section provides an overviewof these issues covering the period from 1968 to 2008.

The length of the festivals has varied throughout the years from three weeks inMoscow 1980 to four years in the summer editions of Barcelona 1992 onwards, althoughthe duration of a Cultural Olympiad is not completely set either. While Barcelona,Sydney and Athens presented activities distributed throughout each of the four years lead-ing to the Games, in Beijing, the Olympiad involves one week to one month of activityevery year between 2003 and 2008, mainly to commemorate the day of the Games award.As a middle term, the Mexico 1968 arts festival lasted one year, the Rome 1960 festivalheld exhibitions during six months and the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Arts Festivallasted 10 weeks.

The management of the cultural programmes has varied from a central managementmodel to shared management, state management, private management and mixed manage-ment. Central management occurs when the cultural programme is the sole responsibilityof the organising committee (OCOG). This has been the case in Mexico 1968, Munich1972, Seoul 1988 and Sydney 2000. Decentralised management or shared management hasoccurred when the Olympic cultural responsibilities have been the obligation of the OCOGin partnership with other organisations either private or public. A representative case wasMontreal 1976, where Canadian provinces were in charge of designing the arts programmeswhile the OCOG’s cultural department was in charge of the logistics. State management hasoccurred when the control of the cultural programme has been in hands of one or variouspublic bodies. This was the model for the management, planning and production of theMoscow 1980 Games arts component as well as the Cultural Olympiad in Athens 2004,entirely managed via a special branch of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. In stark contrast,the clearest example of private management has been Los Angeles 1984. On that occasion,the OCOG was established as a private company and its cultural department hired co-producer agencies to organise the arts events. This was also the case in Atlanta 1996.Finally, there have been some cases of mixed management such as in Barcelona 1992, wherea special organisation for the cultural programme was created with the name OlimpiadaCultural SA (OCSA). OCSA was at the same time separated and dependent upon the Olym-pic Organising Committee (COOB): on the one hand, it had an administrative committeecomposed of Public Administration representatives independent of the OCOG; on the other,the OCSA Board of Directors was presided by the Major of Barcelona, who was alsopresident of COOB.

In terms of core objectives, research by Garcia (in press), Gold and Revill (2007) andGuevara (1992) suggests five major and non-exclusive categories which have varyingdegrees of economic, political, social or cultural undertones: (1) acknowledgement of thecity’s artistic and cultural capacities, (2) improvement of the city cultural services or infra-structure, (3) showcase of the country’s folklore and cultural diversity, (4) internationalprojection, and (5) change of image. The first objective was paramount to Munich 1972and Los Angeles 1984. Both cities were already linked to important cultural circuits and

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counted on the appropriate budget to present a great festival of international significance.The aim to use the Games as an opportunity to improve the city cultural services is said tohave been the major drive of the Barcelona 1992 Cultural Olympiad. The initiative topresent a four-year festival responded to this aim and intended the involvement of relevantsponsors and public bodies to have a long-lasting impact on both national and internationalaudiences. The showcase of the country’s folklore and cultural diversity was a fundamen-tal factor in the design of the Mexico 1968, Montreal 1976 and Moscow 1980 culturalprogrammes. This is also the case for Beijing 2008 and is linked to a deeper politicalagenda of national pride in the country’s heritage. The aim to achieve an internationalprojection was especially remarkable in Seoul 1988, Barcelona 1992, Sydney 2000 andAthens 2004. In the case of Seoul and Barcelona, the Games brought both cities the oppor-tunity to be known world-wide and so, they combined an emphasis on local inclusion andrepresentation with ambitious international communication strategies for culture. Finally,the objective to achieve a change of image has been key in the cultural agenda of citiessuch as Munich, Seoul and Beijing, all of them cities within countries with a marked mili-tary past (Munich was still somehow associated with Nazi Germany in 1972) aspiring totransform international stereotypes.

The themes and artistic programming of Olympic cultural programmes have tradition-ally responded to the defined objectives. As such, they have varied from strongly rootednational festivals to international festivals, and from a focus on popular events to a focus onhigh arts manifestations. For example, Mexico 1968 presented a year-long national andinternational festival while Montreal 1976 presented a small scale but highly popular spon-taneous festival with a marked national character. In contrast, Los Angeles 1984 was alarge-scale, well-promoted festival focused on elite national and international events withfew open-air popular manifestations. Seoul 1988 also presented some international eliteartists but combined them with local popular events. Remarkably, Munich 1972 was para-digmatic in the configuration and production of the arts festivals because the festival wascompletely integrated within the Olympic sporting events. Munich understood the Gamesas a cultural event in itself and presented the arts manifestations in an open and spontaneousway. This was particularly evident in the so-called ‘Avenue of Entertainment’ which wascomposed of street theatre shows, mimes, clowns and acrobats (Burnosky 1994, p. 47) andincorporated performances focused on the interpretation of sports through art.

Further, since the creation of the Cultural Olympiad model, a common feature has beenthe design of thematic festivals, one for each year of the event. In Barcelona, the themesevolved from a ‘Cultural Gateway’ in 1988, to the ‘Year of Culture and Sport’ in 1989, the‘Year of the Arts’ in 1990, the ‘Year of the Future’ in 1991 and the ‘Olympic Art Festival’in 1992. Atlanta also covered a wide range of subjects during the four years of festivals,arranged into two main themes: ‘Southern Connections’ at a national level, and ‘Interna-tional Connections’. Sydney offered a taste of the many and diverse Australian culturalcommunities through presenting an indigenous festival in 1997, a festival dedicated tomulticultural groups and the waves of immigration in 1998, and international festivals in1999 and year 2000. Finally, Athens reflected on major philosophical and humanistic prin-ciples by exploring the notions of ‘Man and Space’, ‘Man and the Earth’, ‘Man and theSpirit’ and ‘Man and Man’.

An additional dimension, not considered by Guevara, is the actual geographical spreadof cultural activity. While most Olympic Games editions have concentrated their culturalprogrammes in the host city (mainly within central areas or, in some cases, within the Olym-pic park and related Olympic venues), since the establishment of the Cultural Olympiad, theambition has been to involve communities beyond the host city to ensure that the Games are

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owned at a national level – and, sometimes, internationally. This has brought an additionalchallenge, as the more dispersed an activity is, the more difficult it is to ensure that theprogramme is widely visible, recognised and impacting on a large scale – particularly fromthe perspective of media coverage. The first nation-wide cultural programme took place inMexico 1968, with various attempts at following this trend taking place in the lead toSydney 2000, Athens 2004 and, currently, London 2012. The latter has established anOlympic first by supporting the creation of 12 regional ‘Creative Programmers’ posts thatare to coordinate and encourage Olympic cultural activity without depending directly on theOlympic Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (see http://www.london2012.com/plans/culture/now-to-2012/getting-involved.php). All of these editions of the Games havealso aspired to incorporate an international dimension, with artworks being presented acrossthe five continents.

Challenges and potential contributions by the International Olympic Committee

Presently, the IOC maintains its commitment to ensure the survival of the concept of Olym-pic cultural programme as an event additional and complementary to the sports competitions.In 1994, this emphasis resulted in the opening of a renovated Olympic Museum in Lausanne,a venue that welcomes the display of a wide array of arts and cultural elements related tosport and the Olympic Movement. Nevertheless, the radical transformations and variablenature of Olympic Arts Competitions, subsequent Olympic Arts Festivals and the recentlyestablished Cultural Olympiad initiative, seem to have affected the ability of Olympic orga-nisers and audiences to understand the function and purpose of a cultural programme integralto the Olympic celebration.

Existing IOC regulations and guidelines emphasise that, to become an Olympic hostcity, it is compulsory to organise and promote a cultural programme acting in parallel to thesporting competitions. These regulations currently appear in the Olympic Charter (2007,Rule 40: Cultural Programme) and in the official guidelines for the host-city candidature(2005, Theme 17, Olympism and Culture). However, none of these regulations, guidelinesand recommendations seem to clarify which is the exact function that a cultural programmefor the Games is expected to accomplish and how its success or failure can be evaluated orstudied by the IOC after its implementation. This has led to a series of problems, difficultiesand dysfunctions that are affecting the preparations of current Cultural Olympiads as muchas they affected the Olympic cultural programmes taking place throughout the last century.

Traditionally, there has been a large gap between the eagerness of potential host citiesto propose activities for the cultural Olympic programme at the bid stage and the readinessof the chosen Olympic organising committee to implement them. This gap might be a directresult of the ambiguous description of the cultural programme in the Olympic Charterguidelines. At present, the only clear statement in the Charter is the fact that the culturalprogramme is a compulsory element in the staging process of the Olympic Games (IOC2007). However, the role of this programme is defined in extremely broad terms and nospecific performance indicators are provided for the OCOG to follow. This situation hasallowed a great freedom of action and interpretation and has contributed to incite veryambitious cultural bid proposals. Nevertheless, this is also the source of remarkable discon-tinuities in the OCOG’s commitment to realise them, especially when the question of budgetand resource allocation is debated.

Further, Olympic cultural programmes, whether they have been organised by an inde-pendent institution or by a department within the OCOG, have had difficulties to sustaintheir association with other Olympic activities and to benefit from the Games’ extensive

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promotional opportunities (Garcia 2001). This is indicative of a potential conflict thatprevents the integration of the cultural programme within the overall Olympic Games prep-arations. Ultimately, this suggests that, although the Olympic Movement aims to be ahumanistic project encompassing sport, culture and education, the commercial imperativesof the Olympic Games staging process have led to the absolute predominance of thecompetitive elite sport programme over cultural and educational activities. The priorstatement is reflected in the operational structure of the OCOG, within which the team incharge of the cultural programme tends to operate almost independently to the rest of theorganisation. This does not only provoke an understandable separation of the culturalprogramme from the departments in charge of sporting competitions but also from thedepartments in charge of Olympic ceremonies, marketing, communications, media andinstitutional relations. This lack of cohesion of programmes and activities has led to anunnecessary duplication of resources and to a lack of visibility for the Cultural Olympiad.

Finally, it is relevant to note the continuous and remarkable difficulties to guaranteeappropriate fundraising for respective cultural programmes. This may be a direct result ofthe way the current Olympic marketing strategies have been designed. None of the funda-mental sources of Olympic revenue – the successful worldwide Olympic sponsorshipprogramme (TOP) and the national sponsorship programmes or the sales of television rights– include concrete references which favour investment in or coverage of Olympic culturalactivities. In this context, considering the low status of the cultural programme whencompared to such activities as the sporting competitions, the ceremonies and the torch relay,it is to be expected that Olympic sponsors will almost unanimously tend to invest in thelatter areas rather than in a cultural programme. Further, the exclusivity principle lyingbehind all Olympic marketing arrangements has traditionally limited the possibility ofattracting funding for cultural activity other than public entities (see Garcia 2001, in press).

All these considerations make a case for a better regulation of the cultural programmemanagement and production system. More specifically, it calls for the creation of a moreclearly defined IOC cultural policy that can protect and enhance such an important butmisunderstood dimension of the Olympic Games. This policy should not impose limits onthe creative freedom of the Olympic host city, but should help guarantee its applicability.For example, the policy should guarantee the commitment of the OCOG to the Olympiccultural programme or Cultural Olympiad, when promises are made at the bid stage. Itshould encourage a better integration (if not a fusion) of cultural, educational and sportingactivities within the Olympic delivery framework, especially through a better coordinateduse of Olympic communication tools and, possibly, an improved interaction between theplanned Cultural Olympiad and other programmes such as the ceremonies, the torch relayor the Olympic education activities. Finally, it should facilitate the task of attractingappropriate funds to realise the programme. This would involve the inclusion of new clausesin the existing Olympic marketing and branding guidelines oriented towards the support ofOlympic cultural programmes.3

Recent initiatives developed under the auspices of the IOC and the Olympic Museum inLausanne do indicate that there might be some opportunities for leveraging the presence andrelevance of Olympic cultural programmes in the near future. A good example has been theestablishment of a regular ‘World Forum on Sport, Olympic Education and Culture’,currently in its fifth edition, which emerged out of the first international Forum on ‘The IOCand its Cultural Policy’ in March 2000. The 2000 Forum followed the decision to merge thepreviously existing IOC Olympic Cultural Commission with the Olympic EducationCommission to give birth to the current Commission for Olympic Culture and Education (seeOlympic Cultural Commission website: http://www.olympic.org/ioc/f/org/culteduc/). This

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joint Commission is supposed to assist in the enhancement of the role and visibility ofcultural matters within the Olympic Movement. The results of these actions are still to befully realised, but they embody an interest to solve the contradictions behind the traditional‘Olympic sport, culture and education’ discourse and may assist in generating new regula-tions to protect and promote the notion of Olympic Cultural Programming. Given the ongo-ing challenge of intercultural relations worldwide, and the privileged position of the OlympicGames as a global media phenomenon, the further advancement of cultural policies withinthe Olympic Movement and clarity as to the role of the Olympic cultural programme shouldbe a priority for the development of the Games as a meaningful cultural mega-event.

AcknowledgementsThis paper is based on research funded by the Olympic Museum, Lausanne (2001) and the BritishAcademy (2004–2008).

Notes1. Note that this section focuses on providing an overview of cultural programming within the

summer editions of the Games. Cultural activities have also taken place in the context of theWinter Games, though on a much smaller scale. The first example of an actual artistic programmeis recorded in Cortina d’Ampezzo in 1956 while Vancouver 2010 is the first winter host to presenta four-year ‘Cultural Olympiad’ programme. Recent editions of the winter Games are providingrelevant points of reference in terms of cultural policy and cultural programming that could beadapted and enhance the visibility of activities within the Summer editions as well (see Garciaand Miah 2006, Gold and Revill 2007, pp. 78–80).

2. The ‘Olympic Truce’ is the principle of stopping all wars for the duration of the Olympic Games,a notion that was originally implemented during the Ancient Olympic Games to ensure the safepassage of all athletes (see http://www.olympictruce.org/).

3. London 2012 is testing the notion of a parallel Olympic brand, not strictly regulated by the IOCand not dependent on TOP sponsor agreements, with its ‘Inspired by 2012’ programme. Thisbrand is mainly targeted at cultural and educational activity.

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