London's 2012 Cultural Olympiad

The London 2012 Cultural Olympiad is the largest cultural celebration in the history of the modern Olympic and Paralympic Movements. Since 2008, the Cultural Olympiad has featured programmes and projects inspired by London 2012, funded by our principal funders and sponsors. As part of the Cultural Olympiad:

• More than 16 million people across the UK took have taken part in or attended performances.
• Over 169,000 people have attended more than 8,300 workshops.
• More than 3.7 million people took part in nearly 3,700 Open Weekend events.
• Some 2,500 cultural projects have been awarded the London 2012 Inspire mark
  
  

Why We Should Bring Back the Arts Olympics

by Lucas Kavner HUFFINGTON POST 8/5/2012, Posted by NEA FAC on August 9, 2012

Culture Reporter, Huffington PostMarina Abramovic is probably the most celebrated performance artist in the world. She's also the subject of a new, engaging documentary called The Artist is Present, currently airing on HBO and in select cities around the world. For the first half of this new film we see Abramovic's past performance work, learn about her unique history, and follow the months leading up to her historic and wildly successful 2010 show at MoMA.

And then in the second half, we watch her do nothing but sit in a chair in the middle of an empty room and stare at thousands of strangers in the eyes, every single day, for over two months.

The event was a feat of performance endurance, surely, and also a beautiful collection of moving images, with thousands of visitors rounding the globe just to sit with Abramovic in New York and join in the project. It was art and prowess mixed, the largest performance exhibition ever mounted at the MoMA, and the longest duration piece ever performed in a museum, spanning 736 hours and 30 minutes.