Sluit menu
Sluit menu
Armando: sculptor, violinist, theater and filmmaker, painter, lithographer, writer, poet. Existential themes are discussed in his work: good and evil, transience, melancholy, war, suffering. The tragedy of man, in all its facets, is depicted by Armando. His experiences in the Second World War are the source of his work. Living near Camp Amersfoort as a child, he was immediately confronted with the horrors of the war. Destruction and distortion play an essential role as visual principles in his work. The paintings and sculptures are overwhelming because of their monumentality and dramatic appearance. Sobriety in material, color and form, and a rough, pasty 'skin' give his works of art the visual power of an archetype. The versatility of artist Armando knows almost no bounds. With overwhelming energy he is active into old age, driven by the urge to continually create something new.
Armando spent his childhood in Amersfoort. He studied art history for a number of years and is part of the Dutch Informal Group, founded in 1958, which merged with the Dutch Zero Movement in 1960. The themes in his work, which he sees as 'gesamtkunstwerk', arise from the time he spent as a child during the Second World War in the vicinity of Camp Amersfoort. The violence of war made a deep impression and in his paintings he often refers to the atrocities of the Nazis. He finds his inspiration in the relationship between good and evil, perpetrator and victim, guilt and innocence. These themes can be seen in his poetry, painting and prose. Armando himself said: 'Everything that concerns my work comes from 40-45'. After the war, he coined the concept of 'Guilty Landscape' for environments where atrocities took place, of which nothing can be seen later. Such a guilty landscape is also the environment where he plays during the war. Armando wrote in 1973: 'It is peaceful here, but be careful. Silence sometimes comes after noise: here there was pain, here fellow human beings were beaten.
In the 1960s he became chief art editor at the Haagse Post and later wrote columns for NRC Handelsblad. In the 1970s and 1980s, Armando appeared on VPRO television and in theaters together with Cherry Duyns with the absurdist Herenleed, a sketch for two gentlemen. As a violinist he plays with the Armando Quartet and the Tata Mirando gypsy orchestra.
In 1989, the Armando Museum was opened in the Elleboogkerk in Amersfoort, which completely went up in flames in 2007. Almost the entire collection is lost. But Armando just continues. He later said about this in de Volkskrant: 'In that respect I don't think I have any feelings. Others were in tears and I just thought 'well, too bad'. The part of the collection that can be saved will go to a new museum on the Oud Amelisweerd estate, which will be opened in Bunnik in 2014 by Princess Beatrix, an admirer of the artist. Armando spent his last years in Potsdam, Germany, where he moved in 2008 and where he died in 2018 at the age of 88. He made his last painting fourteen days before his death.
