Romanian painter, sculptor, drawer, art performer
Mihai Olos (born 26 February 1940 in Ariniș, Romania – died 22 February 2015 in Amoltern, Endigen, Germany) was a Romanian conceptual artist, poet, essayist.
A gifted colorist in his first paintings, he became more attracted towards experimenting with various forms and materials. Familiar with the rural wood culture, he intended to follow in the footsteps of Constantin Brâncuși, combining the spirit of the local folk culture with the trends of modern and contemporary art. Intending to take further the great sculptor's experience, Olos transformed the spindle-head – a miniature of the nail-less junctions in the architecture of the wooden churches of Maramureș – into a constructive module for the project of a universal city he called "Olospolis" that he theorized and represented in different forms and materials. While living and working in Baia Mare – an art center famous for its school of painting – he became first known due to paintings labeled as constructivist and his happenings, being classified among the neo-avangard Romanian artists during the seventies. Even though his first solo show in Rome (1969) had been a success, one of his silver medaled sculptures was included in the Fuji Museum collection in Tokyo, and his wooden sculptures were appreciated by the American artist and Brâncuși scholar Athena Tacha Spear, his real recognition abroad begun with Joseph Beuys' remarking that he was a 'genuine artist' ("Endlich, ein Künstler!") when Olos presented his concept of the Universal City and drew his module on a blackboard at one of the Free University seminars in Kassel, in 1977. Consequently, Beuys included the blackboard with the drawing in his "Das Kapital" shown in the main pavilion of the 1980 Venice Biennial. Olos's six-month teaching at the "Justus Liebig" University in Giessen, his successful performances, solo shows in Wickstadt and Giessen and later on in the Netherlands, made him realize that his work and ideas could have a better audience abroad. Thus, also due to the political turmoil in Romania after 1989, the artist moved his residence in the south-west of (Germany), continuing to exhibit in his native and neighboring countries. In the last decade of his life, finally recognizing his importance as an international artist, he was honored in his country of birth with a diploma, an anniversary show in Baia Mare and another one in the Brukenthal Contemporary Art Museum in Sibiu. In the autumn following his death, the curators of the Timișoara 2015 International Art Encounters exhibition showed his work in a special gallery. But only the posthumous extensive exhibition at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest (May 2016 – October 2017, curator Călin Dan) offered an insight into the variety, extent, and quality of his work, setting the basis of the future development of his generous, inclusive constructive concept of the Universal City. Reticent to sell during his lifetime, there are still few state (among these about 30 in the Baia Mare Art Museum) and private collections owning his work, the greatest number being still in the possession of the estate curated by Plan B Gallery. The latest art fairs – in Madrid, Armory Show in New York, ArtBasel in Switzerland and ArtBasel in Hong Kong – have shown an increase in museums' and collectors' interest in his work, and the 2018 autumn show in Brâncuși's workshop at the Pompidou Center in Paris will mark the real acknowledgment of the importance of his work.
Early life.
Childhood.
Mihai Olos's family roots are connected to the picturesque county Maramureș from north-western Romania. The ethnographic zone of his birthplace Ariniș (its older name being "Ardihat") is that of the sub-Codru (sub-forest) zone, connected with the culture of wood. If geographically the village is situated close to the central point of Europe, historically it is on the borders of the ancient Dacia, on the limes (limits or borders) of the Roman colonization, with some Celtic remains still visible in some circular stone crosses still extant also in the churchyard of the artist's birthplace. The recent archaeological discoveries have brought up remains of an important neolithic culture as well. The inhabitants are proud of their noble origins certified in the Maramureș "Diplomas", of their contribution to the development of nation building. Their opposition to denationalization during the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and the Vienna Diktat, and, with less success, during the years of the totalitarian regime have to be remembered as well. They are also proud for having contributed to the formation of the national language, with the oldest codex of written language found in a monastery from the region.
Mihai, the second son of a Romanian family, was baptized after his father known as "Mihaiu Florii Vilii" in village because there was another unrelated family also called Olos. The artist was proud of his father's maternal family being related to George Pop de Băsești, a politician and president of the Transylvanian National Party (1905–1919). Still, while elaborating his future concept of universal city, he liked to connect his family name to the word's meaning in ancient Greek, i.e. "universal" or "total".
His mother Ana, coming from the Borșa family (or clan) of noble origin, was born in Poiana Codrului, in the full of mysteries zone of wood culture. Among the inhabitants of Poiana Codrului there were also German settlers, employed in the glass factory. His mother's blue eyes and fair hair might suggest also a Germanic ancestry.
Mihai's childhood had started as happily in a still unaltered natural and cultural environment with archaic roots as concerns the organization of the homestead, interior decoration of the home, the authenticity of the household object, customs and faith.
Since his father was most of the time away selling cattle at fairs, the baby boy spent his time with his mother and in the company of the village women. He saw them at work and witnessed their gatherings where sewing, spinning or other household activities were accompanied by singing, the reciting of folk poetry, the telling of tales. The secret practice of charms and witchcraft was still alive those days. The boy with an excellent memory and beautiful voice learned everything he could from the women and in no time became their favorite, imbued with all their knowledge. From his three years older brother and the village boys he learned their games and the making of hair balls, wooden toys, musical instruments from reed or corn stalks, of tree bark or young offspring, wooden skates or even sleighs. His father's being a tradesman influenced him in making rosewater and sell it to the girls in the village. Later on he wrote the girls' letters to their lovers in the army or composed little poems, drew images and texts for their wall-cloths for a modest return. Taking the cattle to the pasture, participating in the farm work from sowing to harvest and the preparation for the next crop, he was also involved in the rural rites around the year. From time to time, when the cattle fair happened to be in their village at crossroads, he was a witness to men's stories, those of the tradesmen coming also from other counties. He learned from them communication skills and the love of conviviality and this whetted his appetite to explore the world.
His early childhood, as he recalled it in his stories, appeared less marked by the war or the experiences of the Transylvanians who had to leave their homes during the Second Vienna Award. Living in his child's closed universe, at that time he was unaware of what was happening in the rest of the world. His father hadn't been conscripted to go to war. No one from the family died on the battle fields. The only tragic event he remembered was that one of his uncles coming home from the war died the day after his arrival and his daughter went after him.
The changes in the family's fate came after the war when, according to the Percentages agreement the country fell under the Soviet influence. The falsified elections of 1946, the forced abdication of the king at the end of 1947 and the establishment of a communist regime affected the child through their consequences. He remembered his father's loss of all the money he had earned selling cattle due to the 1947 currency reform. With the family's shaken material status, the two sons had to become their father's helpers in the everyday chores, whether working in the field or taking care of animals. Going to school and joining the community of the other children from the village came as a compensation. Starting school attendance at six, due to his interest in learning while seeing his elder brother' progress, Mihai became a dedicated pupil, determined to learn and discover all the secrets hidden in the world of books. Even if this period changed his orientation from the traditional multifaceted visual and oral culture towards what McLuhan call "the Gutenberg Galaxy", the archaic archetypal elements of folk culture and mentality would company alter on the artist in his encounters with the western urban culture.
Secondary school in the provincial town of Baia Mare (1953–1956).
A radical change in Mihai's life happened on 11 September 1950, when his mother died in childbirth, a death he never forgot. Their father's remarriage came as another shock to the boys and Mihai's elder brother, Vasile, was the first one to run away from home, followed by Mihai in 1953. Without any material support from home, the boys had no right to receive a scholarship because of their father's refusal to join the collective farm in the village. So they had to take their lives in their own hands. While in Baia Mare, Olos attended the Gheorghe Șincai High School. He began to teach private lessons and during the school holidays worked as a courier at the local newspaper. Learning the "ABC of journalism", he was sent to the countryside as a cub reporter, meeting various categories of people. This experience served him later on, when writing for the press and giving a theoretical grounding to his theories about art and the concept of the Universal City.
Substitute teacher in Oaș (1956–1959).
After graduating high-school and with his experience in private tutoring, Mihai applied for a teaching job. The school was in a remote village in Oaș, Pășunea Mare. The zone had a specific ethnographic character, with extremely proud people who still practiced the vendetta. The women wore vividly colored skirts and scarves. The men used to wear on the top of their head a little straw hat embellished with beads. They were renowned woodcutters but there was no land good to farm. Poor eaters but great drinkers they would not accept a refusal when they offered a drink to their guests. Mihai got lodging for free in the house of violinist ("ceteraș", from the name of the violin called "cetera") and as a young school master he often accompanied the violinist to wedding feasts and round dances, playing the contra. The dances were full of rhythm, the singing with hollers, shriek, piercing interventions. Later on he will practice this kind of shriek singing – hollering – many times in his life, making himself remarked. For the young man who was not even seventeen when he arrived there, it was a capital experience from many points of view. With the permanent presence of death as he could have been killed if interfering in their feuds, this period could be compared to an initiation rite. As these remote villages from Oaș had also served as refuge for many fine intellectuals belonging to the former regime, these political refugees were the first to make known to him the names of the great Romanian writers never mentioned in school or those of important European or American authors and artists.
The gains of the years spent in different places from were counterbalanced by the harsh conditions of life and the poverty of the villagers. The improper living conditions and the poor diet affected the feeble young man's health. The occasion to leave was offered by the newly founded teachers training colleges all over the country and he chose to go.
Student in the cultural capital of Transylvania (1959–1963).
Advised by the intellectuals he had met and befriended in Oaș, he chose to go to Cluj, the cultural capital of Transylvania, instead of going to a closer