Year To Go To London 2012 Festival

Sebastian Coe, chair of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), highlighted the one year to go to the opening of the London 2012 Festival mark by revealing the 12 leading artists who have been chosen to design official Olympic and Paralympic posters for the London 2012 Games.

The 12-week UK-wide cultural celebration from 21st June to 9th September 2012 will feature leading artists from all over the world, including Plan B, Toni Morrison, Olafur Eliasson, Miranda Hart, Deborah Warner, Mike Leigh, Leona Lewis and Damon Albarn.
 
Seb Coe joined Cultural Olympiad director Ruth Mackenzie to announce the artists: Fiona Banner, Michael Craig-Martin, Martin Creed, Tracey Emin, Anthea Hamilton, Howard Hodgkin, Gary Hume, Sarah Morris, Chris Ofili, Bridget Riley, Bob and Roberta Smith and Rachel Whiteread.
 
The posters will be shown in a free exhibition at Tate Britain as part of the London 2012 Festival, and the posters and limited edition prints will go on sale this autumn.
 
Over 7 million people will have the opportunity to enjoy free events during the London 2012 Festival, including already announced events such as the BBC Radio 1 Hackney Weekend on the opening weekend of the festival, Big Dance involving communities across the UK for the first time, and Tino Sehgal’s commission for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.
 
New programme announcements include a free light and fire spectacular by Les Commandos Percus on the shores of Lake Windermere for Lakes Alive; The 2012 Reading Challenge which aims to reach 1 million children across the UK; a special comedy season at the Hackney Empire; an immersive theatre show for Doctor Who fans by Punchdrunk created in collaboration with the Manchester International Festival and the BBC; a free spectacular by internationally acclaimed outdoor performance specialists Walk the Plank in Chelmsford; specially commissioned film events from the BFI; and a De La Warr Pavilion commission by Richard Wilson based on the iconic final scene of the film ‘The Italian Job’.

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London said: ‘A year from today, on midsummer’s day, the festivities will begin with the launch of the London 2012 Festival. The capital will be alive with extraordinary music, art, poetry, performance – a festival on a scale never before seen to celebrate the greatest sporting show on earth. And to mark the twelve month countdown Open Weekend will provide surprises, thrills and just a little bit of magic to whet your creative appetite.
 
Tickets for the London 2012 Festival will go on sale in October 2011, with tickets for a number of Festival projects already available, including Pina Bausch retrospective and Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach taking place at Sadlers Wells and the Barbican.
 
Cultural projects inspired by the Games are also taking place across the UK. This year’s Open Weekend (22nd – 24th July 2011), supported by BP, will see people across the UK attending over 1,000 events to celebrate one year to go to the Games, including special screenings of Tate Movie Project at Live Sites in Trafalgar Square and in cities across the UK.
 
Sebastian Coe, London 2012 chair, said: ‘We always said that the culture program would be part of the London 2012 experience. What you can see today is even more evidence that the London 2012 Festival programme for next year will showcase the incredible creative talent we have here in the UK’.

‘Millions will be able to get involved all across the UK, the vast majority for free; it will be a fitting finale for the Cultural Olympiad’.