A friend writes about Carlos Maria Olivieri...
Art is subjective, and so is this bio. If it were up to him, Carlos would tell you that he was born in… (year) and lived in… (country – country – country – country) and that he worked in… for so many years and so on. But the most important thing is what he has done with his call, that compulsion to create. Discipline, combined with the curiosity and drive of a child, can make for a very profound statement in the art-creating process.
I met Carlos in Geneva in 1974, and was immediately struck by the way he faced art; when he wasn't taking black-and-white pictures or playing the guitar or drums (home experiment: try opening more than one page on the menu on this webpage at the same time and listen to the background music multiply harmoniously), he was concentrated doing painstaking drawings in ink, taking care of the minutest geometrical detail, only to surround that prowess with apparent chaos. It goes without saying that watching the evolution of his art throughout the years is also an incredibly pleasurable experience.
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what is there to say about a camera that captures such beauty and represents it in a state of familiar otherworldliness? Carlos is a living camera; impervious on the outside, he is constantly watching, probing, testing and tasting his surrounding universe. And then he delivers. That which is hidden at plain sight to the naked eye is presented to him and transformed into something different, magical. And here's the twist: no matter what material or technique, it could not have been done differently, and even if it had, the feeling would still be the same.
"It's the first time I've seen this, and yet, I've been here before…"
Thank you for the future memories.
Julio Barboza
September 2018
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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