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Sports but make it art

  • 05 August 2024
  I’ve been working on a particular article on and off ever since the London Olympics in 2012. I joke that it’s been my ‘white whale’, something I pick up and try to finish every four years. The title of the piece is ‘The Arts Olympics’, and it imagines a universe where the arts, rather than sport, gets all the money and attention from the masses. The part I’ve written, and which I try to revisit every four years or so, describes the opening ceremony: The organisers promised that the Opening Ceremony would be a ‘testimony to the human spirit’. Indeed, that’s what it was. They brought in the fastest athletes in the world to run against each other across 100 metres. A group of the strongest stood in the centre of the stadium, competing to raise weights over their heads. Other athletes tumbled across mats, trying to perform the best cartwheels and spins, while a group of judges held up scorecards to rate their performances. They even brought in a massive pool, where people competed against each other swimming from end to end, using a range of often strange strokes. While one critic labelled it ‘a fascist’s daydream’, the majority appreciated the endeavours of the genetically gifted individuals.

But then, of course, the athletes filed out, the clocks were packed away, the judges were bid farewell, and the real performers entered the stadium, to uproarious applause. This was, of course, the Olympics, a celebration of human spirit and artistic endeavour, where the finest painters, sculptors, poets, songwriters and more might bask in the adulation of the world.

 

I really thought this year might be the one where I got to finish and publish my ‘white whale’ article, especially since the Olympics is taking place in perhaps the most artistically inspiring city in the world. But then I watched the actual Opening Ceremony on the weekend, and knew the conversation we’d all be having about art this week would have a very different tenor to the one I was hoping to generate.

Instead of immediately weighing into that conversation, I’d like to draw attention to something a little more inspiring. This social media account, called ArtButMakeItSports, has been posting for some time, but it’s come into its own this week.

The genius behind the account (and they really must be some kind of savant) takes iconic images from sports and matches them with classic artworks – often on
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