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Achille Bonito Oliva
Achille Bonito Oliva
Born	1939; Caggiano, province of Salerno
Nationality	Italian
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. He has organised or curated numerous contemporary art events and exhibitions; in 1993 he was artistic director of the Biennale di Venezia.

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.^[1] From 1968 he taught history of contemporary art at La Sapienza, the university of Rome.^[1]

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.^[1]

In 1979, in an article in Flash Art, 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.^[2]^[1] Bonito Oliva curated an exhibition of their work at Biennale di Venezia in 1980.^[3] He later broadened his definition of the movement to include artists such as Jeff Koons and Julian Schnabel, bringing it closer to the international concept of Postmodernism.^[4]

He was the artistic director of the Biennale di Venezia of 1993, and has organised or curated numerous contemporary art events and exhibitions.^[1]

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,^[5] and Robert Wilson.^{[citation needed]}

As author

Made in mater. Bologna: Sampietro, 1967
Il territorio magico. Comportamenti alternativi dell'arte. Firenze: Centro Di, 1971
Arte e sistema dell'arte. Opera, pubblico, critica, mercato. Pescara: Galleria Lucrezia De Domizio, 1975
Disegno. Trasparenza. Pollenza: La nuovo foglio, 1976
L'ideologia del traditore. Arte, maniera, manierismo. Milano: Feltrinelli, 1976
Vita di Marcel Duchamp. Roma: Marani, 1976
Europe/America. The different avant-gardes. Milano: Deco Press, 1976
Autocritico automobile attraverso le avanguardie. Milano: Il Formichiere, 1977
Passo dello strabismo. Sulle arti. Milano: Feltrinelli, 1978
Arcimboldo. Parma: Franco Maria Ricci, 1978
La Transavanguardia italiana. Milano: Politi, 1980
Il sogno dell'arte. Tra avanguardia e transavanguardia. Milano: Spirali, 1981
La Transavanguardia Internazionale. Milano: Politi, 1982
Manuale di volo. [Dal mito greco all'arte moderna, dalle avanguardie storiche alla transavanguardia]. Milano: Feltrinelli, 1982
Dialoghi d'artista. Incontri con l'arte contemporanea 1970-1984. Milano: Electa, 1984
Minori Maniere. Dal Cinquecento alla Transavanguardia. Milano: Feltrinelli, 1985
Progetto dolce. Nuove forme dell'arte italiana. Milano: Nuova Prearo, 1986
Antipatia. L'arte contemporanea. Milano: Feltrinelli, 1987
Superarte. Milano: Politi, 1988
Il tallone di Achille. Sull'arte contemporanea. Milano: Feltrinelli, 1988
Arte Lago 90, opere d’arte per la superficie acquatica. [Varese]: Lativa, 1990
L'arte fino al 2000. Firenze: Sansoni, 1991
Artae. Milano: Prearo, 1991
Wolf Vostell, L'Arte e lo Stile Della Conflittualità. Roma: Edizioni Carte Segrete, 1992
Conversation pieces. Torino: Allemandi, 1993
La dimora dei corpi gravi. Tributo a Masaccio. Milano: Charta, 1994
Lezioni di anatomia. Il corpo dell'arte. Roma: Kappa, 1995
Oggetti di turno. Dall'arte alla critica. Venezia: Marsilio, 1997
A.B.O.: M.D.. Milano: Costa & Nolan, 1997
Gratis. A bordo dell'arte. Milano: Skira, 2000
Fathi Hassan. Milano: Charta, 2000
L'arte oltre il 2000. Firenze: Sansoni, 2002
Autocritico automobile. Attraverso le avanguardie. Remake per le nuove generazioni. Latina: Cooper & Castelvecchi, 2002
I fuochi dello sguardo. Musei che reclamano attenzione. Roma: Gangemi, 2004
Lezione di boxe. Dieci round sull'arte contemporanea. Roma: Sossella, 2004
Il bianco e altro e comunque arte. Torino: Umberto Allemandi, 2006
Claudio Abate, fotografo: installation et performance art. Milano: Photology, 2007
Baldo Diodato. Opere 1965-2016. Milano: Prearo Editore, 2016

As editor

Autonomia e creatività della critica. Cosenza: Lerici, 1980
Paul Klee. L'annunciazione del segno. Disegni e acquarelli. Milano: G. Mazzotta, 1982
Avanguardia/Transavanguardia. Milano: Electa, 1982
Desideretur. Artisti italiani giovanissimi nel Palazzo della Ragione. Bergamo, settembre-ottobre 1985. Roma: Spazio Skema, 1985
La transavanguardia italiana. Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria, Mimmo Paladino. Roma: Drago Arts & Communication, 2003

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Bonito Oliva, Achille (in Italian). Enciclopedie on line. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Accessed September 2017.
^ Achille Bonito Oliva (1979) The Italian Trans-Avantgarde. Flash Art. (92–93), translation by Michael Moore. Archived 23 February 2019.
^ Transavanguardia (in Italian). Enciclopedie on line. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Accessed January 2021.
^ Ian Chilvers and John Glaves-Smith (2015). Transavantgarde. In: A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, third edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191792229.
^ Gewalttätigkeit als objet trouvé. Retrospektive Wolf Vostell 1958–1974. Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, Berlin, 1974.

[trecc-1] Bonito Oliva, Achille (in Italian). Enciclopedie on line. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Accessed September 2017.

[flash-2] Achille Bonito Oliva (1979) The Italian Trans-Avantgarde. Flash Art. (92–93), translation by Michael Moore. Archived 23 February 2019.

[trecc2-3] Transavanguardia (in Italian). Enciclopedie on line. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Accessed January 2021.

[oxford-4] Ian Chilvers and John Glaves-Smith (2015). Transavantgarde. In: A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, third edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191792229.

[nnb-5] Gewalttätigkeit als objet trouvé. Retrospektive Wolf Vostell 1958–1974. Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, Berlin, 1974.

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