by Vincent Daheron
PARIS (Reuters) – A nod to surrealism, obsession with detail: the official posters for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, unveiled on Monday, highlight the capital’s historic monuments and sports facilities.
The respective posters for the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games, created by Parisian designer Ugo Gattoni, complement each other to form a double poster.
They illustrate the main historical monuments of the city of Paris such as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Grand Palais as well as the sports venues and equipment used during the Olympic and Paralympic Games: the Stade de France, the Seine and the Alexandre III Bridge in particular but also the sea, in reference to the Marseille Marina and the Teahupoo wave, in Tahiti.
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“That represents 2,000 hours of work,” Gattoni explained.
The official posters are part of the surrealist artistic movement, with a level of precision and detail unprecedented in the history of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Through this artistic choice, Paris 2024 pays homage to the “Surrealism Manifesto” written by André Breton and published in 1924, the year of the last Olympic Games organized in the French capital.
Eight Phryges, the official mascots of Paris 2024, are hidden at the heart of these posters in reference to the children’s literary series “Where’s Waldo?”.
Ugo Gattoni is a Parisian designer who “draws inspiration from colorful surrealist microcosms, creates meticulous drawings of worlds and landscapes and tells stories with a touch of poetry and humor,” according to the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee.
In 2012, following the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London, he created an illustration of a cycling race in the streets of the British capital in the form of a five-meter fold-out book.
(Report by Vincent Daheron, edited by Julien Prétot)
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