Piscina Municipal de Montjuïc, Barcelona. ©2012 The Olympic City Project
Our friend Gary Hustwit has been as busy as ever since the release of last year's Urbanized, traveling the world with photographer Jon Pack in what might be construed as an ultracontemporary archaelogical quest: "After the events are over, the medals have been handed out and the torch is extinguished, what's next? What happens to a city after the Olympics are gone?"
Some former Olympic sites are retrofitted and used in ways that belie their grand beginnings; turned into prisons, housing, malls, gyms, churches. Others sit unused for decades and become tragic time capsules, examples of misguided planning and broken promises of the benefits that the Games would bring.
The Olympic City is an ongoing collaboration between the two artists, who have "sought out and photographed the successes and failures, the forgotten remnants and ghosts of the Olympic spectacle" since 2008. So far, Hustwit and Pack have traveled to Athens, Barcelona, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Montreal, Lake Placid, Rome, and Sarajevo, "with plans to document Beijing, Moscow, Berlin, London, and other Olympic cities."
The duo will be traveling to the last round of "post-Olympic"—a term that has a curious resonance with "post-apocalyptic"—cities over the next few months, as the project is set to "culminate with the publication of a limited-edition book of photographs in Spring 2013." As per usual, they successfully Kickstarted the home stretch of the journey earlier this summer.
Inasmuch as the 30th Olympiad has brought the spirit of athletic competition to the international consciousness once again, Hustwit and Pack are pleased to present an exhibition of their efforts thus far:
On the occasion of the 2012 London Olympics, Storefront for Art and Architecture presents The Post-Olympic City, an exhibition of works-in-progress from "The Olympic City Project" by photographer Jon Pack and filmmaker Gary Hustwit. The exhibition pairs a selection of photos Pack and Hustwit have taken so far documenting sites of former host cities for the Olympic Games with archival images, research materials, video and Olympic ephemera, exploring the life of the post-event city. As part of the exhibition, Storefront will live broadcast the 2012 Olympic Games in the gallery.
The artists will be present at the opening tonight, from 7–9PM.
Gary Hustwit & Jon Pack
The Post-Olympic City
Storefront for Art and Architecture
97 Kenmare Street (at Cleveland Place)
New York, NY 10012
August 8–18, 2012
Opening Reception: Tuesday, August 7, 2012, 7–9PM
'After-match' Conversation: Tuesday, August 14, 2012, 7–9PM