Achille Bonito Oliva

Last updated
Achille Bonito Oliva
Achille Bonito Oliva - 2007.jpg
Born1939
NationalityItalian
Occupation(s) art critic, art historian

Achille Bonito Oliva (born 1939) is an Italian art critic and historian of contemporary art. Since 1968 he has taught history of contemporary art at La Sapienza, the university of Rome. He has written extensively on contemporary art and contemporary artists; he originated the term Transavanguardia to describe the new direction taken in the late 1970s by artists such as Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria, and Mimmo Paladino. [1] He has organised or curated numerous contemporary art events and exhibitions; in 1993 he was artistic director of the Biennale di Venezia.

Contents

Life and career

Bonito Oliva was born in 1939 in Caggiano, in the province of Salerno, in Campania in southern Italy. He studied law, and then took a degree in letters. He took part in events connected with the avant-garde Gruppo 63 literary movement of the 1960s. [2]

In 1968 he began teaching history of contemporary art at La Sapienza, the university of Rome. [2]

He became active as an art critic, as a writer on history of art – with work on Mannerism, the historic Avant-Garde movements, and the Neo-Avantgarde – and as an organiser and curator of contemporary art events and exhibitions. [2]

In about 1978 he coined the term Transavanguardia to describe the work of artists such as Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria and Mimmo Paladino, who – in a manner comparable to that of the Neo-Expressionists and the Neue Wilden – discarded the abstract and conceptual approach of the Neo-Avantgarde and instead returned to figurative painting using the traditional techniques and materials, and at times also the forms and motifs, of the past. Bonito Oliva curated an exhibition of their work at the Biennale di Venezia in 1980. [3]

Books

Bonito Oliva has written many books, including monographs on artists such as Marina Abramović, Francis Bacon, Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Alighiero Boetti, James Lee Byars, Giorgio de Chirico, Braco Dimitrijević, Marcel Duchamp, Giuseppe Ducrot, Alex Katz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Paul Klee, Nam June Paik, Joan Miró, Pino Pascali, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Mario Schifano, Nancy Spero, Andy Warhol, Wolf Vostell, [4] and Robert Wilson.[ citation needed ]

As author

As editor

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mimmo Rotella</span> Italian artist

Domenico "Mimmo" Rotella was an Italian artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. Best known for his works of décollage and psychogeographics, made from torn advertising posters. He was associated to the Ultra-Lettrists an offshoot of Lettrism and later was a member of the Nouveau Réalisme, founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany.

<i>Flash Art</i> Italian art magazine

Flash Art is a contemporary art magazine, and an Italian and international publishing house. Originally published bilingually, both in Italian and in English, since 1978 is published in two separate editions, Flash Art Italia (Italian) and Flash Art International (English). Since September 2020, the magazine is seasonal, and said editions are published four times a year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sandro Chia</span> Italian sculptor

Sandro Chia is an Italian painter and sculptor. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he was, with Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria, and Mimmo Paladino, a principal member of the Italian Neo-Expressionist movement which was baptised Transavanguardia by Achille Bonito Oliva.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enzo Cucchi</span> Italian painter

Enzo Cucchi is an Italian painter. A native of Morro d'Alba, province of Ancona, he was a key member of the Italian Transavanguardia movement, along with his countrymen Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Nicola De Maria, and Sandro Chia. The movement was at its peak during the 1980s and was part of the worldwide movement of Neo-Expressionist painters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mimmo Paladino</span> Italian sculptor, painter and printmaker

Mimmo Paladino is an Italian sculptor, painter and printmaker. He is a leading name in the Transvanguardia artistic movement and one of the many European artists to revive Expressionism in the 1980s.

Transavantgarde or Transavanguardia is the Italian version of Neo-expressionism, an art movement that swept through Italy and the rest of Western Europe in the late 1970s and 1980s. The term transavanguardia was coined by the Italian art critic, Achille Bonito Oliva, originating in the "Aperto '80" at the Venice Biennale, and literally means beyond the avant-garde.

Lamberto Pignotti is an Italian poet, writer and visual artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mario Costa (philosopher)</span> Italian philosopher

Mario Costa is an Italian philosopher. He is known for his studies of the consequences of new technology in art and aesthetics, which introduced a new theoretical perspective through concepts such as the "communication aesthetics", the "technological sublime", the "communication block", and the "aesthetics of flux".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carla Accardi</span> Italian abstract painter (1924–2014)

Carla Accardi was an Italian abstract painter associated with the Arte Informel and Arte Povera movements, and a founding member of the Italian art groups Forma (1947) and Continuità (1961).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piergiorgio Colautti</span> Italian artist

Piergiorgio Colautti is modern Italian painter and sculptor, who lives and works in Rome. He is known for his own distinctive style, sometimes labelled "Hyperfuturism", in which figurative elements are enmeshed and submerged by symbols reflecting a cold and modern technological world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruno Ceccobelli</span> Italian painter and sculptor

Bruno Ceccobelli is an Italian painter and sculptor. He currently resides and works in Todi, Italy. Ceccobelli was one of the six artists of the Nuova Scuola Romana or Scuola di San Lorenzo, an artistic movement that grew out of the Arte Povera and Transavanguardia movements of the latter twentieth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maurizio Nannucci</span> Italian artist

Maurizio Nannucci is an Italian contemporary artist. Lives and works in Florence and South Baden, Germany. Nannucci's work includes: photography, video, neon installations, sound installation, artist's books, and editions. Since the mid-sixties he is a protagonist of international artistic experimentation in Concrete Poetry and Conceptual Art.

Marcello Landi (1916–1993) was an Italian painter and poet.

Giuseppe Veneziano is an Italian painter and one of the leading figures of Italian art groups "New Pop" and "Italian Newbrow".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paolo De Grandis</span>

Paolo De Grandis is an Italian contemporary art curator and president of PDG Arte Communications. He lives currently in Venice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas Abdell</span> American sculptor (born 1947)

Douglas Abdell is an American sculptor, living and working in Málaga, Spain.

Luca Pignatelli is an Italian artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sergio Sarra</span> Italian artist

Sergio Sarra is an Italian artist and former basketball player.

Lea Vergine, born Lea Buoncristiano, was an Italian art critic, essayist and curator.

Nicola De Maria is an Italian painter living and working in Torino, Italy. De Maria is known for his abstract figurative works, which have been characterized as lyrical and colourful.

References

  1. Achille Bonito Oliva (1979) The Italian Trans-Avantgarde. Flash Art. (92–93), translation by Michael Moore. Archived 23 February 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 Bonito Oliva, Achille (in Italian). Enciclopedie on line. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Accessed September 2017.
  3. Transavanguardia (in Italian). Enciclopedie on line. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Accessed January 2021.
  4. Gewalttätigkeit als objet trouvé. Retrospektive Wolf Vostell 1958–1974. Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, Berlin, 1974.