Studio’s Talk
Wilson Coutinho

Angelo de Aquino’s is on the ground floor of an old apartment building in one of the most bohemian streets of Leblon, Rio de Janeiro.
The walls of his painting area are carved by his struggles with brushes and painting. They keep records stained by color tracks of finished master pieces. Sometimes, a canvas stil on its original color, thick white, awaits for a gush of light, figure’s outlining and the constant painting layer operations or the usage of collage. Many of them, labels of cigarette packs, are quite close to the artist, held on a kind of shelf right in the middle of the room. Well. it is in the bohemian atmosphere, that the painter explains his work and speaks his most popular character, the dog Rex, who, Angelo sometimes suggests to be own alter-ego.

Anyhow. it is an image created by a contemporary Brazilian artist. At the back of the room, there is a sef-portrait rich in colors and in teh small room a still life. These are teh other two topics that the artist also likes. It was there, in the small room, that the artist was interviewed and explained some steps of his carrier. How do you picture the process of your work? Well I see my art as an intuitive process and considering the current possibilities, consider myself today as a Picassian, because wy work is based more on the intuition rather than on a previous concepts. In this case, I could say it is not Duchampian. There is not any intellectuality of the work neither an intellectual discussion on it. The point is that when I started in 65, there were a lot of young people showing their work and as expected, it took me sometime to achieve my own language, wich is a result of a process. And when was your language available?

I went through the figurative in the 60’s. Later on, I was involved in a construtive painting and finally I reached the monochromatic works. When I moved to Milan, I started performing works in a more conceptual way, using words. There were texts in my paintings and in my drawing. In those days , I realized that my work had a development, as I started working with materials wich made me feel at ease, or better still, despite intuition only coming as a thinking way, my painting started being more built up. Still today, I think the way I paint a picture is more towards a built up painting, not so much.
spontaneous any more. What I mean that it may be spontaneous as I use the brush, but the color has structure. While living in Milan, in the 70’s I started having a more general learning. There, I was able to know what were the most advanced happenings and could see closer the most radical contemporary productions. I arrived there in 1970 and right away had the oportunity to show my work in a very radical gallery, wich had a leading position in those days; vanguard. It was called Centro Tool, whose owner was an artist very much in touch with a conspicuous and conceptual poetry.

What was the Exhibition all about?

It was called “Trough the Amazon”. I showed canvas and papers, all green, with a lot of written things on them. Poetry was in the air and I used a lot of stamps. What I was really looking for was my own space within the conceptual avalanche of those days. I was trying to find my space, a way to be different frm the other artists. It was when my differentially started. I started questioning and making my work in a different way from the other artists.It is easy to imagine that there were more then 90 thousand artists working with words, gestures, installations, performing. A brutal massification of all trends within the vanguard took place in that period. Art Povera, Lnd Art and Performances were mixed together. The so called Art was generalized and it was much wider.

1969 - Angelo, Lee Jaffe e Miguel do Rio Branco

Is this the time one can call pedagogic? Despite the fact I showed my work in “Opinião 65” as a very young artist, my story started in early 70’s. From a historical point of view, that period in Milan could be seen as an elaboration period. I started to paint, to be in important events in Brazil, but the general conscience of the work was not all clear yet. Right here, a question is acceptable; “Did anyone know where taht was going to end at”? I think that every few artist did so. How did writing work at that time? The truth is that I’ve always been very much close to writing. I’ve published short stories and essays, as a columnist I saw beginning of “Pasquim” (an underground newspaper) and the oportunnity of having both together, the word and plastic came up. It aws art in expression, where the word gained a vital role and landed in a definite way; you could write, for instance, “The dream’s over”, a rael sentence said by John Lennon and from them on you could play with the expression’s effects.

Have you started from the verbal expression or did it come afterwards?

The work’s construction up started with the word which was used to structure it. When I was in Milan, I made use of “Amazonia” that I split into equatorial lines, a kind of accusation on the forest devastation and the fact it was being “offered” to foreign groups. From this experience onwards, the work gained more room. That is the date of the development of a work I could call as mine, where the authorship was no longer discussed by me. This was also the time I made several videos and films.

What were these videos like?

I was considered a pionner in what is called the video art in Brazil. My witness is the critic Frederico Moraes who wrote about my first experience in this field. They were really spontaneous performances. I made a video where I get to a bar - Luna Bar, an intellectual point of those days in Leblon neighborhood and start a conversation with Carlinhos de Oliveira (a writer) participation. This video is now with the argentinian critic and cultural promoter Jorge Glusberg. There is another video that he has also kept, wich is “Nadador” (Swimmer). This last one was in 16 mm. and the story goes around a person swimming in a pool from where he could not leave. Slowly he suffocates himself.

And what else did you use to do at that time?

It was a busy period for artists engaged in the vanguard. Arriving from Europe, I made ten exhibitions that could come through the post. It is important to remenber that “Mail Art” was an important trend. Artist from different countries sent their material to us. The place for this “organization” was the boutique called ”Veste Sagrada” (sacred mantle). Monday was the day to take all the selling staff away and put the exhibition together. Later on, we changed the boutique into an art gallery called “Central da Arte Contemporânea” (contemporary art center). Art shows of Barrio, Luis Alphonsus and many other emerging artists took place at tha new Gallery. Postal Art, video installations, everything was put together in those days.

Did you paint at that time?

I worked with paper in a very conceptual way in that period. I was invited to show my work in Poland and I made an installation there. The work I made between 70 and 75 can be considered very profiterable, as within the experimental context, one was “allowed” many things. However, in 75 I felt I aws being redundant. I thought to have reached a limit and there was nothing else to be done with that kind of experience. that formula became tiring, worn out. That’s when I started painting.