Paris 2024 Cultural Olympiad: new Olympic poster exhibition in the streets of the French capital

06 Jan 2022 – From 5 January to 1 February, the City of Paris is putting on an exhibition along the railings of the Town Hall, featuring posters provided by the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage (OFCH). The exhibition, part of the Paris 2024 Cultural Olympiad, showcases 24 official Olympic Summer Games posters, plus a selection of artistic posters that embody the links between art and sport.

The exhibition includes a range of Games posters from Stockholm 1912 to Tokyo 2020. For more than a century, Olympic posters have continued to evolve and diversify in scope, exploring the artistic, political and social developments of their time. Many of the posters were created by iconic artists: painters such as David Hockney and Pierre Soulages, designers like Otl Aicher and mangaka such as Urasawa Naoki, all of whom have offered their own artistic vision of the Games.

Parisians and visitors alike will be able to admire a wide range of artistic techniques and styles, including lithographs, photos, comic book-inspired works, illustrations, paintings and more.

“This retrospective exhibition, which is accessible to everyone, shines a spotlight on the cultural dimension the Olympic Games have had throughout history,” said Carine Rolland, the Paris Deputy Mayor for Culture. “All the posters on display bear testament to the artistic styles and key issues of their time. As such, the exhibition is an integral part of the Cultural Olympiad programme, which will take us all the way to 2024.”

“Each edition of the Olympic Games has been characterised by sporting and cultural images,” said Pierre Rabadan, Paris Deputy Mayor for the Olympic and Paralympic Games and Sport. “Above and beyond the sports and competitions, these posters, which are designed as works of art, remain one of the most eagerly awaited parts of any Olympiad. This open-air exhibition is the perfect opportunity to showcase the values of Olympism promoted by sport and culture.”

For this exhibition, the OFCH made some of the posters available for the very first time.

“The Olympic posters are a visual depiction of the history and socio-cultural identity of each edition of the Olympic Games,” said OFCH Director Angelita Teo. “Many of these non-conformist posters are now part of a remarkable artistic legacy associated with the Olympic Games, and have become iconic cultural works in their own right. We are delighted to have worked together with the City of Paris to exhibit this incredible historical journey on the road to the Paris 2024 Games.”

The historic Olympic and Paralympic Games flags handed to the Mayor of Paris after the Tokyo Games will also be on display to the public in the Paris Rendez-Vous shop.