Sport on Display: Robert Graham, the Olympic Gateway, and Artistic Legacy in Los Angeles
Abstract
The Olympic Gateway acted as the centerpiece of the Olympic Arts Festival and as an enduring legacy of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. The artwork was created by sculptor Robert Graham and stands nearly twenty-five-feet tall with two headless nude figures atop the structure. The Gateway was, at its most uncomplicated, a public monument. However, it was also meant to exist in the refined space of the art world, ultimately legitimizing Los Angeles as a global city that produced and celebrated fine art. The Gateway straddled the line between low and high culture. Sport has long been considered part of mass culture and art has been viewed as insular and belonging to a more refined subset of culture. In many ways, the monument acted as a gateway between the worlds of sport and art and between the worlds of the viewing public and the art critic.
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