angelo venosa

At the beginning of the 1970s, Angelo Venosa (b. 1954, São Paulo, Brazil - d. 2022, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) started attending Escola Brasil, an experimental space for the study of art. In 1974, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he enrolled at Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial (ESDI). In the 1980s, Venosa attended open courses at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, where the so-called ‘Geração 80’ began and developed in. While his generation was known for a return to painting, the artist dedicated his practice to sculpture. His work often evokes organic structures, which he builds using wood covered with textiles, resin, glass fiber or bones, beeswax and teeth.  

In the words of critic Lorenzo Mammi: ‘An even better commentary on these works may be a passage from The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann: ”What was life, really? It was… a fever of matter… It was not matter, it was not spirit. It was something between the two, a phenomenon borne by matter, like the rainbow above a waterfall, like a flame. But although it was not material, it was sensual to the point of lust and revulsion. 

‘The technical precision of analysis and the artisanal pleasure of construction, always present in Venosa’s work, contribute to construct not an object, but a body, with all the echoes of alienation and danger that that term can have. The fly ends up incorporating the machine, or vice versa; in the end, however, life remains as a dull noise, both irreducible and disturbing.’

Recent solo exhibitions include: Projeto Clareira, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC USP) (2021), in São Paulo, Brazil; Compor.Decompor, at Centro Cultural da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) (2019), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Catilina, at Paço Imperial (2019), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Penumbra, at Memorial Vale (2018), in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and at Museu Vale, in Vila Velha, Brazil; Angelo Venosa: Panorama, with itinerancy at Museu de Arte Moderna Aloísio Magalhães (MAMAM) (2014), in Recife, Brazil; Palácio das Artes (2014), in Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2013), in São Paulo, Brazil; and at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio) (2012), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Venosa has also participated in the 5th Bienal do Mercosul, Brazil (2005); 45th Bienal de Veneza, Italy (1993); and in the 19th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (1987).

The artist also has public sculptures installed in Jardim do Ibirapuera, at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP), in São Paulo, Brazil; in Jardim da Luz, at Pinacoteca de São Paulo, in São Paulo, Brazil; at Praia de Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; at Museu do Açude, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; at Parque José Ermírio de Moraes, in Curitiba, Brazil. His works are part of the permanent collections of important institutions, such as: Instituto Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC USP), São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP), São Paulo, Brazil; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Madrid, Spain; amongst others.