We Came for Games
Artist book by Roberto Aguirrezabala
We Came for Games is a humanist project that advocates equality, respect and solidarity between people and cultures. This artist’s book is set in Barcelona in mid-July 1936, when everything was ready for the start of the People’s Olympiad. It was intended to be the biggest international anti-fascist resistance event ever held. The same year, the official Olympic Games were to be held in Berlin with Hitler in power, a shameful act of Nazi whitewashing. But the Catalan capital had been planning the extraordinary boycott of the German Olympics for some time. It was to be a great celebration of peace and harmony between peoples, combining sport and regional folklore in an absolutely unique open call. Unfortunately, however, the protest games were never held. Civil war broke out in Spain the very day before the opening ceremony, due to a fascist coup d’état. Hundreds of young sportsmen and women, having just arrived in the city, decided to take up arms to defend the Republic from the rebels instead of returning to our countries. They came for games and stayed to fight. This concentration of foreigners was the seed for the International Brigades which fought until 1938, when they were forced to dissolve.
This artist’s book is created as an object. It is a piece that shows an experience of both visual and physical narrative, through the touch of textures and materials. The outer cover is made with thick jute fabric reminiscent of the sandbags used in the construction of trenches on the war front. The spine is an original fragment of a militiaman’s blue overalls from the time of the civil war. The exterior of the book is completed with several sewn linen cords, forming the colours of the republican flag.
Inside the book, the story is structured in three chapters that unfold sequentially without interruption. The book begins with a selection of personal stories of athletes who came to the city of Barcelona to take part in these alternative games but who, after the start of the war in Spain, decided to stay in the country and take up arms to fight. Throughout this first chapter, several photographs are shown transversally comparing the official 1936 Olympics in Berlin with the streets of Barcelona in July of that same year after the fascist uprising.
The second chapter is made up of two types of photographs printed on very thick, stone-grey paper. Here we can see portraits of republican militiamen rescued from original negatives of the period, from an old photographic studio. These combatants face images of sculptures by the German artist Arno Breker, a sympathiser of the National Socialist ideology and a regular collaborator of Hitler since the 1936 Olympics.
When we reach the third chapter of the book, the party breaks out. It is a utopia, the dream of the People’s Olympics that could not be, but which we can now celebrate. Old photographs from the first third of the 20th century with people training amateur sports appear alongside images of folklore from different regions and countries throughout the narrative. In addition, Aguirrezabala has taken a series of photographs for this chapter inspired by the covers of the brochures for the 1936 German games. In those booklets, athletes appeared practising various Olympic sports, and in the new images created for this book, the same posture is reproduced, on the same intense yellow background, but featuring militiamen and women of the Republic holding weapons of the time, stepping on the emblematic tiles of the beginning of the century of the streets of Barcelona. The end of the book thus becomes a party, an actual utopia that didn’t come to pass, one that we can now imagine.
Credits
Concept, editing, design, photographs, text and selection of historical images: Roberto Aguirrezabala
English, French, German, Catalan and Basque translations: Interwords Global Services, Izaskun Altube
Printing: Artefacto
Hand bookbinding: Roberto Aguirrezabala
All photographs of Barcelona in July 1936 and images of civil war posters have been loaned by CRAI Biblioteca Pavelló de la República, Universitat de Barcelona and the Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica de Salamanca, Ministerio de Cultura, Spain.
The photographic series in this book has been produced with the support of the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport with the collaboration of the Bilbao Arte Foundation.
Description
Edition: Limited edition of 88 + 6 artist’s proofs (numbered and signed)
Measurements: 18.2 × 23.6 × 3 cm
Lenguages: Español, English, Français, Deutschen, Català, Euskara
Pages: 192 pages with 22 fold-out pages. Three inserts: entrance to the Montjuic stadium, Manifest of the People’s Olympiad and program for the call for the People’s Olympiad.
Number of photographs: 140
Papers: Pergamenata Bianco 90 gr, Arena Smooth Natural 140 gr, Materica Clay 250 gr and Arena Bulk Ivory 80 gr.
Cover: The spine of the book is a piece of original blue overalls from a Republican fighters in the Spanish Civil War. Thick jute fabric outer cover with a screen printing process with thermal transfer of a flocked for the title in yellow.
Binding: Binding in six pieces with two covering materials and intermediate flat spine. Sewn with linen thread and six additional stitching on the right with reverse opening of the booklets leaving 12 threads of 30 cm loose. Integrated printed endpapers.
Year: 2025