He has lived in Rome since  1968, where he began his adventures as an art critic and professor of the history of contemporary art on the faculty of architecture at the University of  “La Sapienza” in Rome. He was a member of Group 63, the literary movement founded in 1963 in Palerma which recalled the ideas of Marxism and the theory of structuralism together with, among others, Alberto Arbasino, Luciano Anceschi, Nanni Balestrini, Renato Barilli, Furio Colombo, Corrado Costa, Fausto Curi, Roberto Di Marco, Umberto Eco and Edoardo Sanguineti.  In 1970, he organized the exhibition "Vitalità del Negativo" (Vitality of the Negative) in Rome, which hosted important artists from the Arte Povera (Poor Art) scene, such as Jannis Kounellis and Pistoletto. It was this exhibition that gave rise to a profound confrontation between this new art movement and the art and culture of Italy's past. His idea of art criticism is innovative: Bonito Oliva, in fact, uses a “creative model” of criticism on the basis of which the critic is no longer the proponent of a singular poetic vision and a mediator between the artist and the public, but an ever roaming “headhunter” looking forever over the horizon.