It is upon us: the dreaded London Olympics. I’m not against the sport, not really. But the wall to wall advertising, the endorsements and the cultural tie-ins leave me totally cold.
London is soon to be awash with Olympics-inspired arts exhibitions designed to snare the thousands of IOC plutocrats who will be attending the Games and overwhelming the transport system. I’ve been to the press launches of most of these exhibitions and can report that they are to be avoided at all costs. I won’t go into details because I’ll just get bilious, but suffice to say that these shows combine the trivial with the artificial to contrive something wholly forgettable.
They are also achingly correct. There are to be poetry events, art shows and books readings that emphasise the world’s cultures and London’s ethnic diversity. The Olympics ought to remind the world that London is among its welcoming and important cities — the ‘capital of the world’ as a Parisian taxi driver put it to me a couple of years ago. But that alone is insufficient. The Olympics should emphasise Britain beyond London; the fact that London is part of Britain even if it seems like a city state.
I wish more museums had followed the British Library, which is leading the way in this regard. A new show, Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands, has just opened. It’s an exhaustive account of British history and geography told through the places described in English literature. The exhibition stretches from Grasmere to the Dark Satanic Mills, from the Hardy’s downlands to the dilapidation of the country’s post-industrial cities, from the bustle of Chaucer’s Southwark, through the grime of Victorian London to today’s gleaming splendour.
This show elevates diversity above the familiar definition of clothes and colour by pursuing a thematic approach to a people, their language, dialects and circumstances. It’s worth a visit. The lead curator, Jamie Andrews, wrote an introduction to it for the Telegraph, and further details can be found here.
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