Art at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games
When the Games begin, most of us watch for speed and scores. Stay a little longer, and another story appears. Walls become galleries. Posters become keepsakes. Performances turn motion into narrative. Objects, small and large, transform ritual into design. Milano–Cortina 2026 stages sport and art together, inviting us to look beyond medals and records to the creative gestures that will define this edition of the Games. Look past the spectacle, and you will find the Olympics speaking in visual and tactile language.
The most visible artistic statement is the twin cauldrons. Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s geometric studies, they open and close like mechanical petals at Milan’s Arco della Pace and Cortina’s Piazza Dibona. Lit together during the Opening Ceremony on February 6 and extinguished at the Closing Ceremony on February 22, the flame becomes a sculptural centrepiece that performs hourly light shows, honouring invention and ritual, and is the result of a project by Marco Balich in collaboration with Lida Castelli and Paolo Fantin.
Performance expands the field of play. Circles, the Cultural Olympiad production Il viaggio dei Giochi, powered by the scenic and athletic energy of the Kataklò Athletic Dance Theatre, directed by Giulia Staccioli, blends choreography, music, and light to turn athletic gestures into human stories. Staged in Alpine landscapes and urban theatres, it blurs the line between spectator and participant, inviting audiences to move, feel, and witness alongside the performers. Here, motion itself becomes narrative, and the Games extend from competition into communal experience.
Captures from Circles, il viaggio dei Giochi, a theatrical performance celebrating sport and movement as art.
Graphic design gives the Games a public face. The official Milano–Cortina posters, by artists including Olimpia Zagnoli and Carolina Altavilla, distil motion, place, and identity into bold marks and colour. Each poster reads like a small painting, travelling through stations, trams, and galleries, offering a portable, collectible way to hold the Games in view. Shown at Milan’s Triennale and issued as limited prints, these works remind us that design shapes cultural memory as surely as any sculpture or performance.
Public art turns the city into a living gallery. Around Milan’s Olympic Village, twenty artists painted large-scale murals interpreting values such as inclusivity, courage, and solidarity. Positioned along daily routes, these panels do more than decorate. They redirect attention, turning ordinary commutes into moments of civic storytelling and making the built environment an active participant in the spirit of the Games.
Public art murals at Milan’s Olympic Village, ahead of the Milano–Cortina 2026.
The Games also leave behind objects that endure. Milano–Cortina medals are miniature sculptures of unity and movement, made from two textured halves that meet at the centre to symbolize the dual identity of the host cities and the shared journey of athletes and supporters. Tactile and thoughtfully finished, they will live on in archives and collections as artifacts that carry the memory of the Games forward.
When the lights go down, and the scoreboards are packed away, what remains are the objects and gestures that shape memory: posters that travel, murals that reshape the city, performances that translate motion into story, and medals that become small sculptures of shared achievement. These works invite us to slow down, look again, and consider how art keeps fleeting moments alive.
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