Category: History

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History’s Weight

The artist Damien Deroubaix is currently exposed at the BNF.fr in its historic site Richelieu. Together with and next to some of the historic treasures of the BNF collections the unique exhibition allows to experience history’s weight on our current existence. The work of Deroubaix is following and pursuing historic art trajectories with a special historical and ethical consciousness. Techniques of art are insensitive to the moral compass of the painter in history. The collections of the BNF like all major European collections have to handle their colonial past and immoral depictions throughout history. Deroubaix accomplished to liberate techniques of art of their colonial linkages and imagination of emperors focusing on humanitarian values. War is horror, in the past and in the present. Genocide in Rwanda is war crime and dealing with the memories of people an honorable way to look forward conscious of the past. Hybrid forms of art allow multiple contextualizations of his work. In the Galerie Mansart and Pigott of the BNF the historical embedding enriches the art and vice versa. Art allows us to rise beyond the ashes mankind has and continues to inflict on us. (Images: extracts of Damien Deroubaix at BNF, Paris 2024)

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Theatre Artists

Performances in the theatre are called pieces. The artists performing are actors of a play. The « Théâtre de la Madelaine », which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2024 puts on a new production in celebration of the biography of the famous painter Claude Monet.
«Dans les Yeux de Monet » is the inspirational title of the play written by Cyril Gely and scenario by Tristan Petitgirard. Looking through the eyes of Monet puts you into the sometimes tormented head of the great artist. The challenge Monet faces is his very own perspective on a new vision for painting. In order to capture the impression of the cathedral of Rouen on him, he experiments with colours and lighting to capture just the right moment in time. Interesting to remember, there is not just one single moment he paints, but many versions of it with each realization offering a special insight or impression. Just on the sideline we learn about the importance of plurality rather than the one and only unique moment in time.
His own personal difficulties of sufficient funding for his art work and the depression he struggled with are well represented in the script and by the actors.
Galerists as well as donors (Mäzene) encourage artists, but somehow may also contribute to the pressure on artists to produce more creative work. Precariousness of living and living conditions are often a corollary of creativity or the creative process. This is a usually forgotten part of the biography of many past and present artists. Artists have and still contribute so much to humanity, but in most countries the public or private support for artists is sketchy. This remains a societal challenge particularly during times of employment and skill shortages in OECD countries.

 

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Masculinity Photos

After the turn of the millennium we keep questioning us about basic principles of humanity, previously called mankind as well. The Zeitenwende has occurred through Putin and other male warriors and warmongers 2 years ago. This is reason enough to keep asking us what is behind the male visions of life and living together. Any hints from social sciences, biology and media studies are helpful to broaden and deepen our understanding of what constitutes masculinity and how it evolves over the life course and within or between societies. The collection of photographs from Jérôme Prochiantz currently exposed at the BNF enlightened the issue. Ever since Max Frisch wrote „Homo faber“ we are aware of the technological transmission process a man might be subjected to. Capturing single moments or arrangements with a lot of care for details shows maybe otherwise hidden male predilections and leaning towards abstraction. An idea or undefined vision, maybe an illusion are depicted in this revelation of masculinity at the turn of the century. Creative and destructive forces are jointly presented in this continuous questioning of masculinity. (Image: BNF, exhibition 2024-11 Jérôme Prochiantz)

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Forced Living Space

The „Topography of Terror“ hosted the book launch of the research project on „Zwangsräume“ (forced living space or forced homes). The cooperation of an impressive network of organizations (Aktives Museum Faschismus und Widerstand in Berlin e.V., Koordinierungsstelle Stolpersteine Berlin, Alfred Landecker Foundation, Metropol Verlag) has achieved to uncover the forced relocations of thousands of German jewish people from rented place to another one, thereby regrouping and cramping Jews into ever smaller living spaces in predetermined houses within Berlin. Through this horrible step by step expropriation and extermination terror was present and visible all over Berlin. The online documentation and data access allowed citizen science projects to accompany the research and actively contribute to enlarge the data investigated, analysis and dissemination of the findings. The continuation and extension of the project is already in preparation and seeks additional funding and volunteers. The traditional book publication helps to provide an insight into the thorough historical research which started with a more adequate definition „Zwangsräume“ than the previously used term of so-called „Judenhäuser“, since the houses had and kept a mixed population sharing the living spaces until deportations of the jewish persons forced into ever smaller living spaces before. The property of the deported persons was recovered by officials from sealed apartments and sold mostly as bargains on auctions or just redistributed among officials in need or with special merit for the Nazi-movement. This adds an intergenerational dimension to the project that is also worth looking into in the next phase of this extremely valuable project based on large online archives from original register information and other documents. (Image: The map shown below in the presentation has blue signs that have already been traced and hundreds of red signs where the histories are not yet retrieved).

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Nazi Reinterpretations

Even almost 80 years after the end of Nazi terror and the 2nd World War started by Germany, we witness attempts to reinterpret the lives and careers of many Nazi officials. In the same realm, the crimes committed to pull out „Stolpersteine“ try to negate the horrible crimes committed by the Nazi leadership and their followers. The special exhibition at „Topography of Terror“ on „Reinhard Heydrich. Career and Violence” allows to study the biography of this high ranking and convinced Nazi official. After the usual career trajectory of a marine soldier he entered the Nazi secret police and made his career moving up the ranks showing readiness to use above average violence. This seems to have been a precondition to qualify for fast career trajectories. These personality traits have been demonstrated for thousands of Nazi officials in their professional life. This exhibition has additional merits to provide shocking evidence that the wife of Heydrich even many years after the end of the Nazi terror and 2nd WW does not show any signs of regret for what were her husband’s crimes against humanity. They had a splendid life and lived in a palace near Prag before her husband died after an attack by partisans. This is a great lesson to sharpen our awareness of those trying to reinterpret the lives of Nazi leaders and many of their followers. It is a timely reminder to not focus on rosy pictures of the Nazi time without the acknowledgment of the responsibility for millions of people who died. (Image: Extract of exhibition on Heydrich, Topography of Terror, Berlin 2024, book publication).

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Nazi SS Terror

The permanent exhibition „Topography of Terror“ in the middle of Berlin is always a place that receives a lot of attention from tourists. This is great news. The central location is certainly part of the success story. The Brandenburg Gate and the boulevard„Unter den Linden“ nearby allow to combine historic interests and site seeing. Many groups from schools gain a visual impression of the terrorism the Nazi dictatorship and its para-military organizations have exercised during the years 1933-1945. The years after the 1st World war until the full dictatorship were crucial to attempt to stem the Nazi tide rolling across Germany from the original Munich-based headquarters. The information on the „Establishment of the Führer‘s Dictatorship“ (image below) is a warning to all of is today to guard against the beginnings of similarly extreme movements and parties today. We shall always remember and we shall never surrender.

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Book Performance

Some texts are written in view of a performance, a theatre performance or an opera in mind. We have had dance performances and choreographers emancipate themselves from the music to claim dance is an art in its own right. Books are books in their own right. However, the hybrid forms of performance of a book was on display in the 2024 edition of the Wiels Art Book Fair in Brussels. It is common practice to invite speakers and authors for a book launch event. It is more rare to invite a choreographer and dancer to perform a book. This is exactly the what the publishers of A.R.D.V.L. did. Garance Debert put the editorial work and conceptual work on a book into a moving performance. There is much more to a book than just the letters and paper. The „mise en page“ turns into a „mise en scèene“ by an artist. The Wiels Art Book Fair has raised our attention to the larger creative potential of books, certainly art books, but also beyond books on art. Performative readings and book performances will enrich our repertoire of interacting with printed materials. Just before we might believe this is the next big hype, remember the bible is probably the book with the most theatrical performances linked to it.

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Of or about

There exists a fundamental difference between taking a picture of something or someone as opposed to taking a picture about someone or something. With the term about we denote or refer to a more abstract category of trees, animals or human beings. The use of of, however, refers to a specific realization within a specific category. Painters or photographers have applied this distinction for a long time. It is similar to social scientists who consider persons or relationships as belonging to more general categories. Gender is such a category which has preoccupied us for years before concluding that just 2 gender categories are not enough to come up with reasonable descriptions and predictions of behavior. The realizations of gender are manifold and not necessarily or only binary in nature as well appearances. Eventually social categories are enlarged to fit empirical patterns in more adequate ways. The image of someone/something therefore is something very different from an image about someone/something. (Image of: Children’s corner at Musée Rodin Paris. Image about: Pedagogic approaches to art, here sculptures « Le penseur », Rodin 19th century)

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Wave Length

The links between art and science are manifold and run in both directions. Artists challenge science or the outcomes of science and scientist refer to or maybe inspired by the work of artists. If artists challenge scientists by proposing an alternative theory they become subject to empirical scrunity like the unfortunate fate of the theory of colors of J.W. Goethe. The physics of colors has long been established and the theory of colors and light are best represented in science using wave lengths as the unit of measuring different colors. Hence, in this theory of colors or light the spectrum of colors runs from violet, dark blue, indigo (short wave lengths) passing yellow (medium wave length) to orange and red (longest wave lengths).
The painter Ellsworth Kelly has also challenged the science-based view of colors in “Spectrum IX” from 2014 currently part of the exhibition “Ellsworth Kelly. Formes et couleurs, 1949-2015” at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (extract of image below). As a provocation to the scientifically trained vision Spectrum IX breaks up the running from short to long wave length to take the scientific linear colors of the spectrum and split the spectrum in the middle (yellow) and join the ends upside down. Alternatively, take the spectrum and glue both ends of the color spectrum together to a circle and cut in the middle of yellow to form again a seemingly linear evolution of colors.
Now, let’s meditate in front of this new spectrum of colors and follow your senses. The challenge of the theory of colors is a provocative statement of all those imaginative potentials we exclude through a solely science-based view of colors. Art opens up virtual space and fills it sometimes with abstract reflections on colors. It is raising the question of beauty versus science, beauty in science or beauty through science. (Image: Ellsworth Kelly. Spectrum IX in exhibition Formes et couleurs, 1949-2015″)

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Phase Shifting

The Berlin “Hamburger Bahnhof Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart” recently acquired “Phase Shifting Index” by Jeremy Shaw. As part of an exhibition of new acquisitions, Sam Bardaouil, the director of the museum and curator of this exhibition has installed the large-scale video and sound installation at the end of the long corridor of the “Rieckhallen”. The impressive, even overwhelming art work was created in 2020. It was first shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
The piece consists of seven large suspended screensand creates a space like in dance club, discotheque or dance studio. The visual and sound experience is allmost psychedelic. The near obsessional dancing shown on the screens represent different periods of dancing with their particular patterns of movements and choreographies. The phase of the electromagnetic waves is shifting from one screen to the other and towards the end of the performances it becomes clear, that they all follow a similar wave or rave pattern. Sublimation or ecstasy are the underlying index-like common traits. Each period or decade 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, all had their peculiar dance and movement patterns. The video-installation is like a history of art of expression through body movement, amplified and indexed through rhythm and sound.
Electromagnetic waves can be characterized through wave shifting in various forms. This work gives us a feeling for the fascination of movement and phase shifting emotions. Don’t worry, the immersion ends after 10+ minutes and, if you like, you might read up on the physics of electromagnetic waves and phase shifting to calm you down.
Images: “Phase Shifting Index” by Jeremy Shaw, 2020, Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof, 2024-9

 

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Innovation Painting

Innovations have fascinated painters just as much as photographers. The impressionists have painted trains and steel bridges as well as modern city life. Innovations change the atmosphere of a situation and new forms of transportation have been admired for many decades. Artists and painters have dealt with this phenomenon in various ways. Either the innovations have puzzled the normal vision of people or things or the artists hinted at curiosities or incompatibilities. Gustave Courbet has depicted in a unique style (Realism), as early as 1865, a seated woman with a paddle on something similar to a catamaran. It is maybe surprising that the modern form of stand-up paddling looks a little bit like the „podoscaphe“ painted by Courbet. Innovations in sports continue to evolve and become part of Olympic Games as well. Some disciplines make it into the Olympic canon rapidly, others never make it. The exhibition of „Artists and Sport“ gave ample opportunities to reflect on the the relationship of artists and innovations as well. (Image Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris 2024, Extrait de Gustave Courbet, Femme au Podoscaphe. 1865)

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Painter Sociologist

In going to a gallery and exhibition of paintings from the 17th century (Gemäldegalerie Berlin) you do not really expect to attend a class of sociology. However, this is exactly what the Flemish painter Frans Hals does with his paintings of various genres of society of his time. His sociological categories are for example unmarried young persons, married couples or pensioners living in a shared home. Other social categories of interest to him are a caregiver or, more common for the time, persons from noble or wealthy families. His painting „The Regents of the old men’s Almshouse” (ca 1660), the male pensioners home is one of his last paintings when he himself was already about 80 years old. Similar to a College of students the elderly home was run by a house father and house mother who took care of the daily living. The paintings of Frans Hals covered the entire life course with a cross-section perspective of society at his time. From few of his supporters he painted even several images moving towards a kind of longitudinal perspective on a person’s life course. Certainly, with “Oude-mannenhuis” (image below) he was interested not only in individual life courses, but of the conditions, forms or images of aging at his time. He probably was one of the first to challenge the negative stereotypes of aging.

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Olympic Criticism

The Olympic Games are, like every international organization, subject to criticism. In democracies this is part of the DNA of democracies that you can voice your criticisms openly without being threatened by persecution or arrest. The Olympic Games have since its beginning in ancient or modern times favored sport disciplines that have a link to warfare. The spectrum of disciplines has been extended recently to blur a bit this belligerent image of the Games. However even the break dance is performed in a kind of battle or competition between two adversaries. This is the reason why totalitarian states have (had) a predilection to show off their state sponsored warriors in the Olympic Games. Nazi Germany and the Berlin 1936 Games were the worst example of how the Games can get abused only to demonstrate a country’s force through athletes. Dictatorships of our times are not much different in this regard. Showing how many successful athletes (soldiers) you are able to produce is somehow an indicator of your professional training system of elite performance. Now, add to it the top performance in the Paralympic Games like Paris 2024 and you can even demonstrate how well you are able to care for and train potentially even also for mutilated warriors. Criticism of preparations of warriors and war masked through sport competitions are maybe unfair or utterly displaced here. It is, nevertheless, much better to compete on the sports-field rather than with loaded weapons. Only in retrospect, we often understand, why some nations made such enormous efforts to demonstrate a commitment to win as much as possible. With a growing enthusiasm for the Olympic Games the critical reflections rise as well.

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Paralympic Happiness

It is with great pleasure that we watch the paralympic athletes in Paris compete for Olympic medals. For many the emotions of participation and being applauded by so many people in a sport arena are great experiences. Happiness derives from such great games and audiences. The accomplishments of the athletes and their supporting teams are truly outstanding. The progress towards such high skill levels is remarkable for each of them. The adaptation to what appears to be a handicap with adequate support and technique allows to surpass limitations. Well exercised skills like swimming are possible to be performed with great skill to achieve incredible performances. The Paralympic Games in Paris 2024 are a great reminder that besides the athletes some artists had to struggle with handicaps, but achieved some of the finest pieces of art. Matisse, for example, is called frequently “le peintre-du-bonheur”, the painter of happiness. In his last few years he faced a severe handicap to paint, however the pursuit of abstraction helped him to continue to create masterpieces. The rather radical pursuit of abstraction and maybe simplification are uncovered in the exhibition “Matisse: The red studio” at the “Fondation Louis Vuitton”. This marks an important step in the artistic life course of Matisse and enabled him to continue his work in later life when his health made it very difficult to pursue his artistic work. (Image at Fondation Louis Vuitton 2024-9-1 exhibition Matisse).

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Olympic Nature

Nature and its biodiversity can teach us many lessons. This is made very explicit in the small exhibition in the “Jardin des Plantes” in Paris. The treasures of (lost) biodiversity are exposed in the adjacent “Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle”. In a pleasant environment within Paris you can stroll along rare flowers and trees to pass the posters that demonstrate the astonishing achievements of some species (Les champions of nature). For example ants would surpass us in weightlifting in relationship to own weight. A marathon of 42 km is a very short distance for birds flying across continents with rest. High jump or long jump is rather easy for frogs, but we struggle already to jump a little bit higher than our own body length. Lots of other examples are shown the exhibition and should make us a bit more humble concerning the sport accomplishments of humans. Beyond Darwin and Mendel there is a lot to see and experience in the Great Gallery of Evolution. After the question remains whether we are really at the top of the evolutionary ladder. In terms of marketing our successes irrespective of many species disappearing with rapid speed, we still appear rather unique in the evolution. Learning from other species as in bionics is a powerful strategy which is also quite effective to empower humans compared to other species.

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Paris libéré

It is with great pleasure to follow how Paris commemorates the liberation of Paris from Nazi-Germany 80 years ago. (Quote from De Gaulle “Paris libéré”.) On the 25th of August 1944 the city of Paris was finally liberated by French armies and the support of the local resistance movement. Similar to the journey of the Olympic flame on the way to Paris, we can follow each city celebrating the liberation from the occupants. Beginning with the landing in the Normandy of the Allied troops, the chasing of the enemy has been a matter of time, but still incurred huge human losses. More than 4 years of Nazi symbols in Paris were finally brought to an end and celebrations on the streets became a symbol for the enormous relief this liberation has meant to the population of Paris, France and hope to many neighbouring, but still occupied territories.
Several documentaries on television and radio allow to empathize with the joy of this time. Enduring the hardships imposed and, for many, risking their lives in clandestine networks of the resistance were honoured by the success of the liberation of the city without the massive destruction, which was to be expected.
A book edited by Ulla Plener (2007) highlights the supporting role played by some women originally from Germany to support the French Resistance movement. It still is not common to understand the retreat of Nazi-Germany also in Germany as the progressive liberation of the country from the terrors of a dictatorship.

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Artist Intuition

Artists have a specific kind of intuition. Many artists build their artwork on the competence to sense interesting deviations from standard representations of persons, landscapes, architecture or societal structures. In 2024 the Paris Olympics have demonstrated again the particular strength of American athletes in the competitions. As a renowned sculptor Auguste Rodin had the incontestable intuition that the American athletes had a physiognomy of impressive dimensions. Well worth a sculpture of its own kind. Rodin realised the first bronze statue of the “American Athlete” as early as 1901. In 2024 American athletes are much more diverse, but the impressive strength is documented in the USA still leading the list of countries in terms of gold medals. Rodin’ sculpture of the American athletes is focused on the muscular strength in contrast to most of his other work where gestures, clothing or emotions were immortalized. (Expo: En jeu ! Les artistes et le sport. Musée Marmottan Monet photo below) There is also a stark contrast to Rodin’s famous “ Le Penseur”. The dialectic vision or just visualizing both artworks next to each other reveals the difference to represent simply an athlete or the abstract concept of a thinking person.

American Athlete, by Auguste Rodin 1901
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Sports Game

Each museum in Paris gave its view on sports. There is hardly any perspective that is not represented. The link of sports to soldiers in ancient Greece or the gladiators in the Roman empire are prime examples of this. The Museum Quai Branly added an ethnographic dimension to this view showing sports traditions in African, Asian and indigenous American peoples. The bookshop of the museum added anthropological views and critical literature to the phenomenon of sport. A provocative example of critical cultural literature has in the book title the question: Is sport a game? We all have our opinions on this topic. The idea that sports remains a game is a rather naive one. Most people probably would argue that in view of the high ticket prices, sport has primarily become big business. Listings and comparisons of medals between nations have financial implications in the aftermath for disciplines and athletes. The upcoming Paralympics in Paris reframe the above question. Sports at high levels is a very serious game.

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Paris Experiment

The Olympic Games 2024 were prepared years ago. Already the application procedures to prepare “un dossier” has to bring in lots of ideas and imagination what is desirable and feasible. Paris opted for a celebration of sustainability in a city proud of its medieval heritage and the Haussmann tradition of radical transformations of a city with large boulevards and representative buildings. From the “Arc de Triomphe” the major axes of communication between “arrondissements” become visible. 100 years ago the city had already been transformed according to this master plan. At that time sanitation of a city meant different things than today. The invasion of inner cities by Diesel-driven cars made life unhealthy again. Now, the Olympics gave reasons to restrict cars and lorries passing the inner city and the great boulevards. More tourists need more space and shall keep a much better memory of how pleasant Paris was during the Olympic Games. This could be a game changer for urban development in general. The proportion of pedestrians versus cars has to be shifted in favor of the walking population for many reasons. Tourists will flock to the city, if the overall and shopping experiences are great. Back to the future sounds crazy, but it has an interesting flavor to it for urban renewal and residents as well. (Image Paris 2024-8, b/w color filter applied, enlarge to see vasque)

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Digital Museum

Paris has lots of museums to visit. At times, this can lead to a kind of mental overload. The ” Musée Marmottan Monet, in Paris allows to take home a digital and printed copy of your preferred, your own curated collection of images from the museum. This is a great learning experience. You scan the number of the item you want to include and a specialized application retrieves the image of the painting or object from their database into the App. After the visit you take a break in the café in the garden and sort your collection and if you like have it printed within a couple of minutes after you paid for the print or digital version. Upon special request I was told that I am allowed to share the link to the small booklet even on the web (Link to pdf below).
Since the visit to the Musée Marmottan Monet we have come back to the digital and printed versions several times and reading of accompanying texts and perfect quotations of origin make learning about art a fun experience. Going back to lived experiences makes more lasting impressions on our memories. Knowledge coupled with emotions is a powerful way to memorize. Sharing the experience with other persons like the readers of this blog is an additional advantage. Attentive readers of the blog entries will find references to many of the themes dealt with over the years in this series of blog entries. Such topics are: gender and art, technology and society, reflections on time, life courses, inequality, art history, funding of artists, lifelong learning or beauty.
(Booklet below in German LINK-pdf of 6MB.  The app allows many language versions. You can produce those yourself from you collection within the App) 

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Commemoration Paris

The cemetery “Père Lachaise” is a spacious area of commemoration in the 20th arrondissement in Paris. Many famous people have been buried there or moved to this cemetery eventually. Edith Piaf, Gustave Caillebotte or Frédéric Chopin are known across borders. You find also a small monument for the controversial founder of homeopathy 200 years ago “Hahnemann” there. He spent his last 8 years in Paris before he died at the age of 88 in 1843. From a social science perspective it is interesting to note that commemoration is much more decided by the descendants like in the case of Hahnemann or the popularity of the person, like for Piaf, than the person her/himself. The tradition of joint graves for families holds for the Paris born painter and collector Gustave Caillebotte despite his movements to other places. The freshly cut flowers on the grave of Piaf show that the performances of the artist have made deep and lasting impressions.

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Olympic Travel

Paris 2024 made it necessary to travel between Paris and Marseille for some sports. This can be cumbersome if you miss a train. Waiting time is usually not perceived as a comfortable time. The Paris Gare de Lyon, which was built for the Expo Universelle 1900, however, can make your waiting time a rather comfortable experience. The Restaurant “Le train bleu” offers breakfast French style, lunch or dinner. The time passes by living like 100 years ago when traveling by train was still a luxury form of getting from A to B. The comfortable train stations of that time have become busy hubs of mobility and commerce. Missing a train or just acting as if you missed one becomes an almost historic, impressionist or maybe surrealist journey in itself.

Gare de Lyon, Paris
https://www.le-train-bleu.com/en/ Paris
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Sports International

Beyond the Olympic Games the practice of sport has been widely spread across cultures. The meeting of cultures through athletes is also a worldwide phenomenon. The “Musée du Quai Branly” offers an opportunity to delve into the different cultures of the world. With abundant water resources Oceania has developed boats that ensured survival, work, art and leisure. The image below is a fine piece of art which is exposed in the permanent exhibition of Oceania. Even a turtle appears to be rowing next to the others. Most other depictions or objects with reference to sports have fighting as a feature or refer to it. The Olympic games have similar historical depictions. Martial practices, sometimes also called martial arts, have been the source of decorations and special designs in all cultures. The ethnographic collections of this museum offer a glimpse into the rich cultural heritage of all continents. We have so much in common across continents that it is still hard to see mankind captured in many wars across the world. Paris 2024 Games with the “Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac” give hope that sustainable development (70% of the museum is green space!) and peaceful living together is feasible with a focus on joint cultural heritage with enriching diversity.

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Sports Beauty

Since the days of ancient Greece the combination of sports and the ideals of beauty has been praised. The many representations of mainly sportsmen at the time were copied by many artists to represent ideal forms of bodies and beauty. Only more than 2000 years later the female sportspersons find equal admiration in sports and the imagery of beauty. The Académie des beaux-arts in Paris 2024 has chosen this as a topic to guide visitors of the Olympic Games through the vast collections at the Musée Orsay (imaga below). The depiction of Hercules, for example, has idealized the strength of men. The beauty of sports movements reaches levels of dance or ballet. The precision of performances highlights the not only the physical qualities, but also the beauty of the body in motion. The popular appeal of performance and perfection contribute to the admiration of ideals. Reaching these ideals is a completely different story. The training and preparation may take years mostly invisible to the one time spectators. However, the glory stays for decades or until a closer match to the ideal is achieved by another athlete or another person. Even ideals are time dependent and rarely eternal.

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Olympic Democracy

It is interesting to follow how the Olympic Games follow a moderate version of how to run a democracy. Paris 2024 takes pride in making this a little bit more visible. It is the people in democracies who decide whether to host Olympic games in their country and the many executive branches of governments have to coordinate their actions, budgets and planning accordingly. The National Assembly in Paris 2024 is showing its commitment to the Games in front of the building as well. Beyond the ancient discipline of archery, new disciplines like surfing is turned into a piece of art like a statue honoring the athletes. The IOC follows the division of powers with an assembly of states, an executive and the judiciary. In each discipline it is evident that without a well established and accepted independent judges the Games would become a farce and would no longer attract such huge crowds. It is a steep challenge to ensure that doping and other illegal activities do not destroy the peaceful spirit of the Olympic Games. Science has a role to play in advancing and controlling the athletes and their teams acting under cover. All in all, we find democracy in a nutshell including the necessary trust in institutions to ensure a fair running of the Games in Paris 2024.

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Park Le Nôtre

Landscapes and gardens maybe occasions of splendid design. Paper and pencil designs or oil on canvas have left us with great imaginations of gardens as well as parks. The garden designer Le Nôtre in France has left us unforgettable, fantastic landscapes that have been originally realized 300 years ago, but has still many people you are impressed when looking or walking in them. One of the earliest projects is to be admired in Meaux just next to the cathedral. The design of the “jardin Bossuet” is attributed to Le Nôtre who later designed the park in the “Chateaux Vaux-le-Vicomte”. These accomplishments earn him the invitation also to design the gardens of Versailles. As part of the Paris 2024 Olympics the whole world was able to watch some of the horse mounted competitions there. Architecture leaves us impressions over centuries. Gardens are the most natural part of this cultural heritage.

Meaux France
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UNESCO Art

The UNESCO building hosts fine examples of modern art. For example “L’homme qui marche” by Giacometti (Image 1 below, focus on shadow of the figure) is one of the treasures exposed next to the conference center. The statue is very fitting as introduction to the exhibition “Fit for Life” during the Olympics, although it has been there for many decades. Taken on a photograph from a specific angle, the marching man appears like a crucified person without the crucifix. Each athlete has a long march behind him or behind her to reach the landmark of participation in the Olympic games. The media attention puts the spotlight on the winning persons albeit the many splendid performances of all other athletes. The cultures of the games is to be found in the millions of people who are inspired by these outstanding performances to also try their best in whatever conditions are encountered locally.

The strive by each athlete to achieve the highest goals, possible or even impossible, is reflected in the big wall painting by Picasso, 1958,  which was especially commissioned by UNESCO as the new building was inaugurated in Paris. The title of Picasso’s painting is “The fall of Icarus”, an ancient narrative of mankind reaching for the sun, but ultimately failing. Let’s keep waling despite the risk of falling short of ideals. A reasonable vision for diplomacy as well.

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Olympic Equality

Of course, first of all the Olympic Games are about making a difference with respect to your opponent. However, there has been a thrive to achieve an equality of genders for more than 100 years as well. Women had to battle such a long time to achieve the right to participate in the Games in the same disciplines as men. For the first time in Paris2024 men and women are represented with the same amounts of athletes. Each gender is participating with 5.250 athletes and astonishing progress has been made to ensure that male and female athletes perform in the same or similar disciplines. Even if it took decades for women to run a marathon at the Olympics, the inclusion of a triathlon for women was already much more rapid.
This constitutes a real milestone in the progress towards equality in Olympics. Equal numbers of athletes is a quantitative form of inclusion, the qualitative level of inclusion remains to be accomplished. The qualitative dimension consists in the inclusion of women at equal footing in media reporting and sponsoring. On the organizational level of the IOC the organizing committee is still dominated by men and statistics on the accompanying teams of coaches, therapists and representatives a lot of progress still needs to be accomplished. Paris made already a huge difference and several exhibitions of the “cultural games” around the city during the Olympics 2024 make this point quite forcefully.
The sociology of the Olympic Games has a lot of topics. It is great to see the progress made in Paris on Olympic Equality, after all “égalité” figures prominently in the definition of modern France.
(Image: BNF 2024 exhibition “A History of Women in Sport” own translation)

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Olympic Visits

The Olympic Games 2024 in Paris are celebrated in the Stade de France and the Nautical Stadium which are both situated in nearby Saint Denis. There are fast trains and a Metro station to reach the venues.

Just one stop further you may visit the historic site of the Basilica St. Denis where most of the French royals were buried. A dive into history with the crypt of graves and splendid church windows will compensate for the additional effort to walk to the site. Quiet places are rare during the Olympic frenzy of cheering spectators and buses rushing sportspersons between venues and the newly built Olympic village. Security can feel intimidating at times but preventing bad situations is in the interest of everyone. The small historical center allows to start a visit off the busy calendar of events with a walk around the city center and the basilica.

Saint Denis Basilica 2024-7 France
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Segregated Estonia

In cities of Estonia the segregation between the majority of Estonian speaking persons and Russian speaking persons has a long tradition. The Russians built new housing as part of their occupation of Estonia and housed their own persons there and sent their children to Russian speaking schools in these neighborhoods. The paper by Kadi Kalm et al. (ESR, 2024, 208ff) demonstrates the persistence of this “colonial” segregation over generations. However the authors show that desegregation of schools is a remedy to such previous housing and education policies. Learning the majority language is a definite step towards later integration into society just as (marital or household) union formation or labor market success do. The Baltic states have managed to escape from the Russian occupation but the Russian neo-imperialism is not entirely tamed. This explains a great deal of the anxiety of Estonia and other previously Russian occupied Eastern European states of a Russian backlash. Military commitment and a strengthening of the European Defence Union is a consequence. (Image Medieval Town Hall Tallinn Estonia 2024)