FRANÇAIS
ENGLISHJacques Olivar
I was born in Casablanca, I never met Michael Curtiz or Humphrey Bogart, or Ingrid Bergman, but I breathed the spiced smells of the souks.
I listened to people speaking Arabic and tasted their wisdom. I slept in the caves of Aglou. I played truant to go and find the heat of the golden beaches of Casablanca coast. I listened all nights long, at the radio, to the first notes of this wonderful, new and so meteoric American music that is rock’ n’ roll. It was as if it had travelled infinite distances in the galaxy, relayed by the aerials of air bases of the New World stopping in Morocco, and light years away before sweeping across Europe. I was locked up into a school, I escaped. I was eight and I was caught. I run away when I was 9, 10, 11, eleven and a half, 12. Then my parents died and I was never caught again. From my Gipsy and Andalusian mother, I inherited her music, and from my father, I did not inherit anything. So I hit the road. Meanwhile, Alfred Hitchcock was making a film in Marrakech, “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, one of the Technicolor masterpieces which inspired me so much. Icarus seduced me in a flash, but his wings melted with the sun. On my way, I met Isabel and we escaped once more. In Crete, I played music and hanged about the ochre sand beaches, I lived in houses at the top of Olympia mounts and their biblical views, I tried to solve the world’s problems a hundred of times with my peers, rainbow wanderers. Neither my son, nor my wife, nor myself, did go back to school – this universal area of formatting and cloning. I cut wood and picked up olives of thousand year-old olive trees. Then, such an important place, I went to Tangier. Its east wind, coming from the bed of the Mediterranean sea, hit the cliffs of the two capes and blows away, full of stories of spies who made history where, in funny business, refined prostitutes, very good-looking people, visionary writers, craving for independence, all meet. To the young boy I was, it’s an unforgettable sight which marks forever the adolescent imaginary: the short-lived banks, casinos and clandestine dives where mafias’ gold flows freely, where you can find smuggling anywhere. Where the East wind blows until going insane, where truths and lies intertwine in a breathtaking tolerance system. There was Jean Genet, who was buried in Larache. His friend, the brilliant and sombre writer Mohammed Choukri. As well as Beat generation poets such as Timothy Leary, Jack Kerouac, Peter Orlovsky, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Neal Cassady. I carefully packed them all in my bags. Then, Paris welcomed me, warmly, tenderly, as the prodigal son. I loved making pictures, and Paris loved them. From Steinbeck, I retain for my pictures these faces which are impassive in front of fate. From Tennessee Williams, I retain the image of the fragility and loneliness of Southern people. From Dos Passos, his love for story-telling. From Garcia Lorca, I retain the sharp pain of 4 stabs and voices which echo on the Guadalquivir River. Without them, I certainly would never have taken pictures, at least not as I do. I took pictures of wonderful people. All along my career, I met great persons. I run away when I was 9, 10, 11, eleven and a half, 12 and, this time, I was never caught again.
JACQUES OLIVAR
I listened to people speaking Arabic and tasted their wisdom. I slept in the caves of Aglou. I played truant to go and find the heat of the golden beaches of Casablanca coast. I listened all nights long, at the radio, to the first notes of this wonderful, new and so meteoric American music that is rock’ n’ roll. It was as if it had travelled infinite distances in the galaxy, relayed by the aerials of air bases of the New World stopping in Morocco, and light years away before sweeping across Europe. I was locked up into a school, I escaped. I was eight and I was caught. I run away when I was 9, 10, 11, eleven and a half, 12. Then my parents died and I was never caught again. From my Gipsy and Andalusian mother, I inherited her music, and from my father, I did not inherit anything. So I hit the road. Meanwhile, Alfred Hitchcock was making a film in Marrakech, “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, one of the Technicolor masterpieces which inspired me so much. Icarus seduced me in a flash, but his wings melted with the sun. On my way, I met Isabel and we escaped once more. In Crete, I played music and hanged about the ochre sand beaches, I lived in houses at the top of Olympia mounts and their biblical views, I tried to solve the world’s problems a hundred of times with my peers, rainbow wanderers. Neither my son, nor my wife, nor myself, did go back to school – this universal area of formatting and cloning. I cut wood and picked up olives of thousand year-old olive trees. Then, such an important place, I went to Tangier. Its east wind, coming from the bed of the Mediterranean sea, hit the cliffs of the two capes and blows away, full of stories of spies who made history where, in funny business, refined prostitutes, very good-looking people, visionary writers, craving for independence, all meet. To the young boy I was, it’s an unforgettable sight which marks forever the adolescent imaginary: the short-lived banks, casinos and clandestine dives where mafias’ gold flows freely, where you can find smuggling anywhere. Where the East wind blows until going insane, where truths and lies intertwine in a breathtaking tolerance system. There was Jean Genet, who was buried in Larache. His friend, the brilliant and sombre writer Mohammed Choukri. As well as Beat generation poets such as Timothy Leary, Jack Kerouac, Peter Orlovsky, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Neal Cassady. I carefully packed them all in my bags. Then, Paris welcomed me, warmly, tenderly, as the prodigal son. I loved making pictures, and Paris loved them. From Steinbeck, I retain for my pictures these faces which are impassive in front of fate. From Tennessee Williams, I retain the image of the fragility and loneliness of Southern people. From Dos Passos, his love for story-telling. From Garcia Lorca, I retain the sharp pain of 4 stabs and voices which echo on the Guadalquivir River. Without them, I certainly would never have taken pictures, at least not as I do. I took pictures of wonderful people. All along my career, I met great persons. I run away when I was 9, 10, 11, eleven and a half, 12 and, this time, I was never caught again.
JACQUES OLIVAR