The games were over in a matter of weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds—and won in ever-finer spans that follow decimal points as a testament to our technological prowess—but the buildings themselves abide. London is just one of the dozen cities featured in filmmaker Gary Hustwit and photographer Jon Pack's ongoing project to document a representative sample of former Olympic sites in an effort to understand "what happens to a city after the Olympics are gone?"
We're still six months shy of a definitive answer, at least if we're holding them to their Kickstarter reward delivery dates, but seeing as the conversation will surely have shifted by then, Hustwit and Pack are presenting the work-in-progress at New York City's Storefront for Art and Architecture. If the salon-style presentation of the work—around 40 photos depicting half the cities in the final tally—is unbiased, the title of the exhibition betrays a hint of an answer.
Where the working title of the project was "The Olympic City," a strategically-placed prefix both clarifies and reframes their efforts in terms of bygone glory. (Tonight's panel discussion with the artists and several architects is a sporting play on 'aftermath.') The so-called "Post-Olympic City" comes in many shapes and sizes, but I was initially struck by how the sites (iconic landmarks notwithstanding) look remarkably similar, distinguished mostly by telltale signs of age and local graffiti tags. [NB: Those of you who can't make it to the exhibition before it closes this Saturday can see some of the work here.]
