Smithsonian Magazine: At the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, American Walter Winans took the podium and waved proudly to the crowd. He had already won two Olympic medals—a gold for sharpshooting at the 1908 London Games, as well as a silver for the same event in 1912—but the gold he won at Stockholm wasn’t for shooting, or running, or anything particularly athletic at all. It was instead awarded for a small piece of bronze he had cast earlier that year: a 20-inch-tall horse pulling a small chariot. For his work, An American Trotter, Winans won the first ever Olympic gold medal for sculpture.
6 comments:
First off I think it is ridiculous that the winners of any artistic medals have been stripped of their metals. It seems that is just on the whim of the IOC chair in the late 40's to stricken the metals. That I do find to be sad.
I do think that incorporate art would be an amazing to show the world. The main problem I do see with art is how subjective it is. The advantage to athletics is there are strict set of rules that can be scored. Even with that statement there are many sports that could be just as subjective as art: gymnastic and diving are just two examples. So I think it is worth to look into and organize for the arts.
I find it strange that the medals were struck from the country's overall counts. While it makes sense that they would no longer count because the categories are no longer in existence, those countries should be able to take pride in the fact that they held those medals in art. I never knew that there had been medals for art competitions, but I like the idea that there are still competitions around the Olympics and that the winning pieces are displayed at the Olympic games at each summer games. I would really like to see this story spread and for more people to become aware of the history of the art medals.
This is a difficult subject to address. Sports are objective and have rights, wrongs, and rules. Making art something that is no longer subjective seems wrong, but it also seems wrong to not address it as an equal to athletic ability. I suppose if they no longer count art as a category then it doesn't make much sense to count those past victories on countries' records, as unfortunate as that is. It would be interesting to see what would happen if we brought that category back into the games.
I reserve all of my patriotism and sports-enthusiasm for The Olympics. At another other time, I couldn't care less about sports. Simultaneously, I am hugely interested and active in the arts. That all being said, I don't think it's appropriate to include arts in the The Olympics.
Firstly, art is not something that can be concretely judged like sports are. Of course, some sports can be quite subjective (gymnastics comes to mind) but usually an athletic competition has a definitive winner. Art on the other hand is entirely subjective and comes in so many variations. How could a judge fairly compare a minimalist painting to a realistic statue?
Secondly, limiting art to the realm of sports immediately sets up the arts competition as a sideshow to the main event - the real sports. No wonder the art competition didn't stick around.
Finally, art isn't about competition. In the modern world, being able to survive off your art is competitive, but the creation of art shouldn't be for the purpose of a medal. All works of art are in conversation with one another, and as such artists should be able to expand upon or further explore concepts or techniques developed by other artists. Assigning a first, second, and third place inhibits the collaboration that is inherent to the artistic process.
I agree with all the comments above, I feel like it is impossible to judge one piece of art over another piece of art. What I did gather from this article though was that the inclusion of Art in the Olympics marks an exciting thought/ truth that Art has a history, a battle to be fought, and is a global part of the world. I feel that it would be interesting to have an Olympic gallery, maybe the hosting country each year can have a few chosen works representative of their country and time, all to be showcased with the coming of each Olympic season. That might be exciting!
I agree with what everyone else write about the subjectivity of art and the difficulties this presents to fairly judging a competition.
What I do find incredibly strange is that one of the arguments made in the 1940s for getting rid of the arts competition was the idea that artists could use their medals to increase the price of their art, and that this was not in the spirit of the Olympic Games, which were purely to showcase athletic feats and not to win money.
That mindset is not in absolute and complete opposition to the reality of the Olympic Games. Now, winning an Olympic medal means a huge jump in an athlete's endorsement deals, and in the case of an athlete like Michael Phelps, this could be all the income you need for the rest of your life. Yes, artists rely on selling their art to make a living, but athletes do the exact same thing: success in their "art" (sport) means more money.
As a side note, I don't think the medals should have been struck from the countries' overall counts. Even if Olympic art is no longer an event, those awards still deserve to be recognized.
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