Cultural Olympiad takes shape with Tony Hall
The news that Tony Hall has been confirmed as Chair of a new board prompts a few thoughts.
In him, the (LOCOG) has a tireless champion of the arts and if anyone can shed light on how the Olympiad will proceed from now on, it's him.
In addition to chairing the new board, he will also sit on the Board of Directors of LOCOG. How will he manage his new role with his other day job at the ? I don't doubt that he'll find a way, but with both being high profile, publicly accountable positions, I imagine there will be immense scrutiny.
The issues specifically relating to the Olympiad are to do with how the whole thing will work. Few would argue with the fact that the UK has a major opportunity to showcase the cultural sector when the eyes of the world will be on London for the three weeks of the in 2012.
But so much of what has already been said about the Cultural Olympiad smacks of art by committee and now we have a new structure, a Cultural Olympiad Board. It's no wonder those who care raise eyebrows. New structures cost money to run and create new layers of bureaucracy. These are not places where artistic endeavours naturally flourish.
The Cultural Olympiad has set itself very ambitious targets indeed. They want the Olympiad to change the way the games are seen from London 2012 onwards; they want to use the Games to transform attitudes to the arts in the UK. Many partnerships and collaborations have been forming ever since its launch last year, but what shape the Cultural Olympiad takes really starts with Tony Halls appointment.
I'm 
Comment number 1.
At 16th Jul 2009, ghostofsichuan wrote:Let's hope they don't institute drug testing.
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Comment number 2.
At 17th Jul 2009, catfordvi wrote:>>New structures cost money to run and create new layers of bureaucracy. These are not places where artistic endeavours naturally flourish.
Neither are many of the other publicly-funded institutions like art schools especially productive but the taxpayer continues to fund them.
This quango is presumably instituted to ensure that some of what is created is felt to be meaningful to the lives and tastes of the vast public paying for the Olympics. If the artists feel hard done by then tough luck. Post-It noted tents, sliced shark and diaramas of toy soldiers have their place in the world but are also meaningless and offensive to many whose tax deductions pay to house or fund such work.
Live with it.
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Comment number 3.
At 18th Jul 2009, Doctuer_Eiffel wrote:"...They want the Olympiad to change the way the games are seen from London 2012 onwards..."
It is all about money and very little about sport. This conceptual change will simply not happen. The arts is there as a smoke screen to take attention away from the rampant and ridiculous revved up nationalism which is there as a smoke screen to distract from the back handers that are synonymous with the Olympic scam. The amount of tax put into the sport is being hidden by the silly noise from the shamed arts establishment. Stop funding sport and the arts until all the homeless are safely housed.
If you want to do sport fine get on with it just don't expect me to applaud when the money is taken from the poor and the homeless. Shame on Tony Hall for being the government lackey. A bureaucrat of bureaucrats.
Scum rises to the top.
Get an advertising agency to do it. At least that is honest.
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Comment number 4.
At 23rd Jul 2009, clickem wrote:We need to be mindful of the Dome debacle; a prime example of how committees destroy creativity.
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