ANGELO DE AQUINO
1945 - Born on August 2nd, in Belo Horizonte, son of Edgard Correa Aquino and Guiomar Guimarães de Aquino. He lived there until the age of 7. The father coming from a family of tailors, used to paint and draw during weekends in a Picasso-like style. “Our first contact with Art took place at our own house”, says the painter in a recollection. His father was acquainted with several groups of local intellectual people of Minas Gerais State. 1952 - The family moved to Rio de Janeiro, living in Leblon, first at José Linhares St. and later on Afrânio de Mello Franco Av. until 1962. Angelo went first to Elementary School at Jardim de Infância Pequeno Polegar; then to Colégio Santo Agostinho and later to a boarding school in Vassouras, State of Rio de Janeiro. 1962 -1964 - The apartment at Afrânio de Mello Franco Av. become a gathering point for young artists. A group was formed by Roberto Moriconi, Giles Jacquard, Antonio Dias, Marcio Mattar and Dileny Campos. “On Saturdays, the apartment became an open house” says Aquino. During this period, he wrote poetry, influenced by Rimbaud and illustrated his poems. Illustratioins began to dominate the scene, turning into drawings and paitings”. In 1964, he started sending his works to exhibitions and took part in the National Modern Art Exhibition and in the First Esso Young Artists Exhibition, when he met artists from São Paulo such as Tomoshigue and José Roberto Aguilar. “I started interstating my friendship”. It was a time of several young bohemian meetings based at the Dezon Gallery in Copacabana to discuss painting, cinema, literature and music. “We lived in a kind of beatnik environment. We tried to be different from other people”. Often visited Pedro Escosteguy’s house, Antonio Dias’s father in law. “Those were saturdays when poets and artists listened to Tango and poetry reading”.The MAM (Museum of Modern Art) in Rio de Janeiro, coffee shop became a meeting point of young artists. 1965 - Friendship with Helio Oiticica, whose house in Jardim Botânico he often visited. “Helio’s house had this fantastic mangueirense (related to Mangueira, a samba school in Rio) atmosphere. Ceres Franco, the marchand, came with Jean Boghici to Rio to organize an exhibition with artists resulting in the Opinion 65, at the MAM in Rio, the biggest happening in Plastic Arts during that year.
1967 - He lived in Ipanema, at Barão da Torre. Triangulo School of Art, a partnership with Renato Landim and Gilberto Loureiro, was also located at this adress. First Solo Show in Rio, at G4 Gallery specializing in vanguard art and project by Sergio Bernardes. Frederico de Moraes signed the catalog. He made covers for the books at GRD (a publishing house). He went very often on Saturdays nights together with other artists to the house of Thomas Cohn, an art collector. He starts to work with marchand Franco Terranova at the Petite Gallerie, at Teixeira de Mello St. He took part at the 22nd Municipal Art Exhibition, in Belo Horizonte, winning the 2nd prize in Painting, awarded by a jury which was formed by Frederico Moraes,Walter Zanine and Jayme Maurício, among others. Critic Frederico Moraes wrote about the Exhibition at G4 Gallery: “Color-Space: it is color that reveals space and measures its autonomy in a painting. Space-Color: it is space, defining itself from the color, that achieves its own quality. Color structured in space. And movement.
1968 - He attended political meetings among artists at the Glauce Rocha Theater, at Arcoverde Square, Rio de Janeiro, where the participation of artists and intellectuals in the “March of the 100,000” would be organized. Institutional Act nr 5. Group Exhibition at Petite Gallerie, with Adriano de Aquino, Maria do Carmo Secco, Julio Plaza and others. It was a year when, because of politics and panic spread, there was very little to be done. Franco Terranova investing in young artists allowed some calm.
Curator of Exhibitions at Gallery veste Sagrada, presenting Australians Peter Kennedy and Michael Parr, Polish Jaroslaw Koslowski, American Dick Higgins (“He was among the founders of Fluxus and was very close to Wostell and John Cage”), Italian Ugo Carrega and several Brazilians including Barrio and Luiz Alphonsus. He worked in artist’s videos and films, a work he is considered a predecessor in Brazil. 1974 - Gallery Veste Sagrada became the Contemporary Art Center. Gallery was opened with a Solo Exhibition of Angelo de Aquino. Guilherme Vaz, Paulo Herkenhoff and Ivens Machado, among others, also had shows there. He organized with Walter Zanine, at the MAC-SP, Prospective 74. “My works started to move around internationally, taken by CAYAC”, says Aquino, Latin America Art System at I.C.C., in Anvers, Belgium; Latin America Art System at Palais des Beaux- Arts, Bussels, Latin America Art System, at I.A.C., London, England; Alternative Video at the MoMA, New York, USA; Projections of Films Made in Latin America, at the Contemporary Art Museum Of Chicago, Chicago, USA; Latin America at Zagreb, at the Zattar Gallery, in Zagreb, Yugoslavia; Latin America Film and Video, at the University of Buffalo, New York, USA; Art and Ideology in Latin America at the Agora Studio, in Maastrich, Netherlands. 1975 - Exhibition of Solitude at Maison de France Gallery, with Videos, films and works on photographs by Miguel Rio Branco. he had an atelier at 333, Sambaíba St. in Leblon, Rio de Janeiro. Group Exhibitions Latin America Art System, at Espaço Cardin, in Paris and Galeria Civicca da Arte Moderna, in Ferrara; Graphics from Rio del Plata at Gallery St. Petri, at University of Lund, Sweden; Problematic of Latin America Art, at École Cantonale des Beaux-Arts, in Lausanne; CAYAC in the International Exhibition at Vieeshal, Mildburg, England; Peace 75 - UNO 30 years, at New Art Gallery, Slovenj Gradek, Yugoslavia; 4th International Video Meeting, CAYAC, Buenos Aires. Marries Vera Bocayuva.
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