LAUSANNE.- The exhibition Sport in Focus is being presented jointly at the Photo Elysée from March 28 to August 17 and at the Olympic Museum from May 27 to August 17.

First presented at the Rencontres de la Photographie Arles in 2024, this exhibition, co-produced by Photo Elysée and the Olympic Museum, explores the fundamental role of photography in the mediatization of sport since the late 19th century.

For more than a century, images have accompanied major sporting events. With the rise of amateur photography at the end of the 19th century, coinciding with the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, photography and sport have in many ways developed in tandem. The visibility given to sporting events necessarily involves the photographic image. The pursuit of performance, the combination of effort and movement, sport is governed by precise rules and is made into a spectacle when it is staged with a view to competition. The staging of sport is conveyed by the photographers who take up positions around the stadium.

Watched and played everywhere, from the most industrialized areas to the most remote corners of the globe, spectator sports are highly sought after by the media, business and political worlds alike. Major events attract ever larger crowds and, thanks to images, an increasingly global audience. The sporting performance on which the cameras focus becomes a demonstration of a social model. Watched and played everywhere, from the most industrialized to the most remote parts of the globe, spectator sport is propelled into a world of media, economics and politics. Photography has undoubtedly played an essential role in this process, mobilizing a mass audience.

Sport in Focus showcases the vast photographic collections of the Olympic Museum and Photo Elysée. During major competitions, photographs are used to draw attention to the performance of athletes. By exploring a largely unpublished photographic legacy, the exhibition reveals the visual grammar of sports photography through a series of themes: media coverage, which began in Athens in 1896; technique, which sought to capture movement through freeze-frames; composition, which influenced the visual narrative and constructed the celebration of athletes' achievements; and, finally, a series of images that are a key element of the Olympic Games.

There are the photographers who use sports photography as a pure documentation of performance, and others who use it as an artistic medium. The numerous focal points offer us a narrative that sheds light on the photography of sport and the Olympic Games in particular.

Sport in Focus is an opportunity to bring together two photographic collections: that of the Photo Elysée, with over one million objects, and that of the Olympic Museum, which houses the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of Olympic heritage, including artifacts, archives, images, books and films. As the cultural and heritage arm of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), its mission is to make Olympism and Olympic culture accessible and relevant to everyone.

Photo Elysée also presents Olympism Made Visible, a photographic project that highlights the impact of Olympism around the world. This series, initiated by the IOC, illustrates how Olympic values are translated beyond competition into a variety of cultural and social contexts.

Curator: Nathalie Herschdorfer

Curatorial team: Audrey Bongard, Fanny Brülhart, Anne-Cécile Jaccard, Yasmin Meichtry, Hannah Pröbsting, Fernando Scippa, Anna Volz Got and Anja Wodsak

Scientific advisors: Olivier Le Noé and Julien Sorez