Paris 2024: the worst and best works created for the Olympic Games

From July 26, France will welcome the Olympic Games. For the occasion, many institutions have reconnected with the tradition of the Cultural Olympics. On the program, a number of exhibitions, shows, major popular events…

The public can enjoy paintings, sculptures, installations, etc. free of charge. For better or for worse ! In this race for artistic proposals, Beaux Arts has sorted out the best to see… Here is our list of winners.

1. Gold medal for Isabel Muñoz at Maison Guerlain

At a time when the French capital was adorned with its luminous clothes to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, it was on the theme of gold that the Maison Guerlain placed two special orders and invited 16 artists currently presented (in FREE ENTRANCE) in its magnificent space at 68 avenue des Champs-Élysées. In response to Guerlain’s order, Spanish photographer Isabel Muñoz (born in 1951) achieved a sublime 24 carat gold print on glass plate representing the body of the Free diver Ai Futaki. Underwater, like a goddess born from the foam, she evokes the paintings of Botticelli. The swimmer also turns into Great Odalisque by Ingres. Lying on a precious rock, Muñoz’s mermaid enchants us with golden reflections. For us, it’s a gold medal.

2. Silver medal for Harry Nuriev at the Project Room

A good point for the design ! Invited by designer India Mahdavi to invest in her Project Room, designer Harry Nuriev (born in 1984) imagined a ping-pong room, called “Match Point”, to whom we readily award a silver medal for his luminous words. The entire room, from the walls to the table and rackets, is adorned with reflective light and silver, brushed surfaces, which thus generate a space mirror game from inside to outside, and vice versa. A physical work to try for real, freetime for a little game of table tennis – be careful, first come, first served!

3. Bronze medal for Louis Verret at the Les Filles du Calvaire gallery

Several galleries are also in the running for the official JOP 2024 route with exhibitions with free entry. At Les Filles du Calvaire, Louis Verret (born in 1988) wins the match and climbs to third place on our podium of favorite works with his series of portraits and full-length figures of footballers in watercolor. “Globally popular, widely publicized, the football player is an inexhaustible vehicle of emotions,” explains the artist who arbitrated his watercolors in “atlases”, the players coming to tackle each other. A Panini album that dribbles from Karim Benzema to Ronaldinhowhere poetry plays the balloons to the fullest.

4. One step from the podium for architecture students at La Villette

With their “Archi-Folies”eco-responsible and removable pavilions, students from 20 architecture schools asked to design the pavilions of 20 sports federations deserve the congratulations of our jury! They are waiting for your visit – free – until July 7 then from August 28 to September 3, in the Parc de la Villette, where the pavilions have been installed to welcome the sports federations of the Paris 2024 Games from the kick-off. Badminton shuttlecock feathers, straw, windsurfing hoops… Special mention for inspiration, since everyone drew on the world of sport to imagine their architecture.

5. It’s rolling for Raphaël Zarka on the Piazza Beaubourg

Everything is sliding for Raphaël Zarka (born in 1977), visual artist and skate fan since childhood. In collaboration with the architect Jean-Benoît Vétillard, Zarka inaugurated on Piazza Beaubourg, in front of the Center Pompidou, a 100% “skatable” monumental sculpture by amateurs and pros alike. To succeed in offering the dream curve to skateboarders, the artist drew on the scientific cabinets of the 17th^e and XVIII^e centuries, following the model of the astronomer Galileo and his “cycloid”, offering a very steep slope. The chosen colors dynamically celebrate constructivism and the architecture of Le Corbusier. Ride youth!

6. A muted “Salon” for Alison Saar near the Champs-Élysées

Much was expected of Alison Saar (born in 1956), the Californian invited by the International Olympic Committee to create a Olympic sculpture. For 40 years, her work, exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and LACMA in Los Angeles, has examined black female identity. So what do we find in the Charles-Aznavour garden, near the Champs-Elysees since June 23? A black woman holding an olive branch and a golden flame, seated in the middle of six seats symbolizing all the continents. Titled “Living room”this first project in public space outside the United States, described by the artist as“multicultural work” almost seems a little conventional. Even if we love the principle of having designed each element in bronze and volcanic rock in workshops in Puy-de-Dôme.

7. Red card for the installation of the National Assembly

Nothing is going well at the Bourbon Palace anymore. The artistic installation which has been enthroned for several weeks (and until September 22) on its steps inflicts on passers-by a parade of sculptures shaped in acrylic resin aligning a range of colors, from bright purple to garish red. As we approach closer, we recognize the Venus de Milo, which has found its arms! It’s definitely better for holding a basketball, putting on boxing gloves, or grabbing your surfboard (surely the temptation of a swim in the Seine). Baptized Beauty and Gesturethe work of the artist Laurent Perbos (born in 1971), internationally recognized for his creations which draw on the world of sport and the Olympics, disconcerts us both aesthetically and in his approach which intends to give visibility to women athletes: “Venus opposes the imagination collective which too often associates sport with the masculine. » The Victory of Samothracethe goddess Nike, symbol of Victory, can therefore go and get dressed!