After studying Graphic design with Luc Van Malderen at the ENSAV La Cambre in Brussels, in 1981 Olivier Wiame begins creating posters for various theaters and cultural institutions; he works namely for the Théâtre de Poche de Bruxelles, an underground venue whose posters were originally designed by Jacques Richez, Roland Topor, Raymond Renard… Wiame's posters for the familiarly called "Poche" (pocket) have been for the past twenty years widely spread in Brussels, both on the official and unofficial circuits. Wiame works also regularly for " La charge du Rhinocéros ", a small yet very daring theater production company. In the Eighties, fascinated by the stage, he becomes the assistant of many well-known set designers: he works namely with Bob Ringwood for the French version of "'Tis Pity She's a Whore" by John Ford, and with Mark Thomson for "Good" by C.P Taylor. Set design turns into being his main activity, in Belgium and abroad.
Besides designing posters and creating scenography for theater plays, Olivier Wiame keeps experimenting in drawing and in the graphic arts, especially etching. Nowadays he worries about the future of the cultural poster that he considers as one of the few zones of free expression left; cultural posters are in danger because of austerity measures in the cultural sector and because spaces on the city walls are awfully expensive: commercial advertising, controlled by a few multinationals, has eaten up all available square meters in the public space. Cultural posters are at risk of hanging solely in museums and galleries.
Since I set my foot in Brussels, I noticed Wiame's posters; through the Nineties, thanks to a couple of hyperactive professional flyposters, his powerful 70x100 were to be seen on every wall, by the hundreds. I've been seldom disappointed, and those posters gave me the taste of an exceptionally free, daring, mainly hand-made design. Something to give you a huge complex. After some time, I met the man behind the posters: angry and visceral, and yet so modest that he would upset me. That's the story of this web exhibition. TS
Contact: wiame.olivier@skynet.be
Face of Fire, 2003
