Kickstarter

Greetings backers, just wanted to let you know that The Olympic City project hit its Kickstarter funding goal this morning. Thanks so much to all 1,031 of you for making this happen! You all get gold medals. 

But we're not stopping now. We'd love to include more cities in this project, and judging from your comments and messages so far, you've all got specific cities you'd like us to feature. There are 13 days left in the campaign, and if we reach a higher funding level, we can travel to more cities and include them in the book. And we'd let you choose which additional cities those should be.

So please keep spreading the word about the project, here's the link: http://kck.st/KxGmoH

Thanks again, and have a great weekend. 

Cheers,

Jon & Gary

Greetings backers! The campaign for "The Olympic City" has been picking up steam, and we're now 85% funded. Thanks so much for supporting the project, and please keep spreading the word! 

We've just finished up our visit to Mexico City, home of the 1968 Summer Games. Here's the last update on our experiences here: 

Since the Olympics focuses a global media spotlight on the host city, they've sometimes become a stage for political acts and, in some cases, violence. If you ask Mexicans about the significance of the year 1968, many won't mention the Olympics, they'll speak of Tlatelolco, the massacre of student protesters by Mexican army troops 10 days before the Olympics began. On our last day in the city we visited the site.

In 1968 there'd been a growing wave of civil unrest and anti-government protests by student groups and labor unions, and protesters hoped the increased media exposure surrounding the coming Games would aid their causes. Approximately 10,000 protesters gathered in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas the evening of October 2, 1968. The questions of how and why the shooting started still remain unanswered.

The Mexican government at the time claimed that armed protesters assaulted the troops who'd surrounded the plaza, provoking their response. But a 2001 report concluded that snipers belonging to the presidential guard had fired on the troops from rooftops surrounding the plaza, causing them to shoot into the crowd of protesters. 

There was discussion in the days following the massacre about whether to cancel the '68 Olympics, but IOC president Avery Brundage decided they should go on. Estimates of the casualties that night range from dozens to hundreds, and “La Noche Triste” (the Sad Night) has had an impact on Mexican politics and culture ever since. I've over-simplified this account but there are many sources of info online if you'd like to learn more about Tlatelolco. I think it's interesting to look at the history of how the Olympics has acted as a catalyst for social and political movements, for better or worse. 

In all, I took over 1,500 images of Mexico City, which will now get edited down to the final 20 or 30 that'll be included in the book. We had a brief SD card error issue (backup your data now, people!) but otherwise all went well. Muchos gracias to our friends at Canana Films and Pimienta Films for all the production help, and to the staffs at all the facilities we visited.

On to the next Olympic city in the project (tag Jon, it's your turn), which Jon and I will be announcing next week. Thanks again for your support!

Cheers, Gary

PS - It's just a coincidence that I'm wearing the same shirt in this photo as I was in our Kickstarter video. I have other shirts, really...

Greetings backers, here's another update from Mexico City, where we're continuing to explore the city's post-Olympic legacy. 

And there are only 17 more days left in our Kickstarter campaign, so please help us make this book project happen by spreading the word and blasting out this link: http://kck.st/KxGmoH Thanks!

México Mágico is an amusement park built in the '80s whose main attraction was scale models of Mexico's most famous buildings, and a 30-foot tall labrador retriever you could walk inside and see its giant internal organs. Sure-fire winner, right? Unfortunately the park fell on hard times a few years ago and closed, and the giant dog caught on fire. But the park's miniature models included some Olympic structures, so we hopped the fence to see what remained. 

1968 Olympics stadium Palacio de los Deportes:

México Mágico also featured scale models of some of the Ruta de la Amistad Olympic statues... ironically the model of Herbert Bayer's Articulated Wall is in much better shape than the real thing (see update #2). 

The charred skeleton of the Giant Dog:

Barbed wire wound:

What could top an afternoon of trespassing? An evening of masked Mexican wrestling! Arena Mexico was the boxing venue for the '68 Olympics and has long been the home of Lucha Libre wrestling. Several nights a week the faithful gather to watch the luchadores battle it out. 

More to come. Thanks again for supporting the project. Cheers!

-Gary

Greetings backers! We've been getting some great stuff here in Mexico City. Also wanted to let you know that we hit the 50% mark on our funding goal yesterday. Thanks again for your support of this project. But we're only half way there, so please spread the word if you can and blast this link out to your lists:

http://kck.st/KxGmoH

One thing that's struck me is how many of the venues built for the '68 Olympics are still in active use today, 44 years later. The Olympic Village Athletes' housing was turned into condos, and the training center there is still an active community sports center. 

And the Athletes' Village condo buildings are numbered in, you guessed it, Helvetica:

We also visited the Palacio de los Deportes, the famous copper-roofed stadium built for the '68 Games. It's an entertainment venue now, with massive concerts, etc.

The Francisco Márquez Swimming Stadium is also still in very active use:

Another of the sculptures commissioned for the games, Alexander Calder's "The Red Sun" in front of Estadio Azteca:

Many more photos to come... 

Cheers!

Gary

Hola! Greetings from Mexico City, our next stop on The Olympic City project. 

On Day One here, I focused on the Ruta de la Amistad ("Route of Friendship"), a series of 22 large-scale public artworks commissioned for the '68 Olympics from artists around the world, including Alexander Calder, Herbert Bayer, Ángela Gurría and Willi Gutmann. These concrete sculptures line a 10-mile path along a highway which in '68 was south of the city, near where the Olympic Village and massive Estadio Azteca had been constructed. 1968 was a pivotal year in international politics and culture, and these sculptures embody that optimism for the future and the importance of public art.

Before we go any further, watch this incredible video of Raquel Welch dancing in front of some of the sculptures shortly after they were completed! Psychedelic!

The main thing to notice here, besides the dance moves and tin foil bikini, is that there's nothing around those sculptures, they're in the middle of nowhere on a two-lane road. But as Mexico City's population tripled from approximately seven million in 1968 to over 21 million now, that tiny two-lane road looks like this today:

The city has grown around (and very much past) this area, turning it into a traffic-snarled corridor lined with hotels, office buildings, and mega-malls. An elevated highway is also under construction here.

So the situation with these sculptures is in flux, and local and global art conservation groups are attempting to restore and relocate many of the works. Some sites have found corporate underwriters to facilitate this process, such as American Express's sponsorship of Polish artist Grzegorz Kowalski's Reloj Solar:

But many of the works are in extremely poor condition, trapped between buildings, their surfaces and plaques vandalized. Here's Bauhaus master Herbert Bayer's Articulated Wall, one of the pieces Raquel and friends were frolicking in front of:

Bayer has been a personal hero of mine and his work is one of the reasons I became interested in graphic design, so this was pretty depressing. I can only hope the restoration and relocation efforts continue and that all 22 sculptures are saved.

Next up: the Olympic Village and training facilities. Thanks for following along and for supporting the project, and please spread the word.

Cheers!

Gary