Friday, May 16, 2014

World Cup '74 Portrait #55 (Walter Olivera: Uruguay)

 

graphite & putty eraser, with watercolour pencil/30x21cm

Today’s randomly-chosen subject (as analogous to the traditional manner of the purchasing of packs of stickers) is Walter Olivera, who was selected for inclusion in both the Panini & FKS World Cup 1974 sticker album collections, but not, ultimately, as a member of the Uruguay squad for the Finals (being thus something of an ironic choice, for the first Uruguayan to be featured in the Project): his entry in the FKS album informs that Olivera appeared in the opening fixture of Uruguay’s qualifying campaign, against Colombia, & had also played for the national team against their neighbours & rivals Argentina, but otherwise little seems available to retrieve on the details of the player’s international career.

Olivera, then, appears as one of those particular ‘ghosts’ of the ’74 World Cup, a non-participant in the actual events yet related to, & part of the tournament’s history, via at least some aspects of memorabilia, a tangible presence courtesy of the image-objects of the stickers photographically representing him in the albums - however unknown he might have been at the time of my televisual experience of the 1974 World Cup, with obvious reason, & had remained since, until the acquisition of the publications - & now, in the context of the drawing project, very much a part of proceedings & ’memories’.

 


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