Olympian Art: (Inter)national Proposals for Munich '72
Leading up to the 1972 Olympic Games held in Munich, a number of artists from West Germany and the United States proposed site-specific art works for the Olympic building s and grounds. While ultimately unrealized, their proposals responded to the site, a landscape made from the rubble of prewar Munich, and critically addressed the return of the Games to Germany, which had last hosted the event under National Socialism. Nevertheless, the projects cleared the ground for overcoming German art's preoccupation with national concerns and contributed to the emergence of an international art world.
Christine Mehring (Ph.D., Harvard University, History of Art and Architecture, 2001) is Associate Professor of Art History and the College at The University of Chicago.
