Arnulfo Aquino died, promoter of a political art and close to social struggle

The recorder, designer and teacher Arnulfo Aquino Casas died yesterday morning at age 82, due to a heart attack, in the municipality of San Francisco Tutla, Oaxaca, his native state and where he settled since 2004. There he directed the Graphic Recreation Workshop, his initiative, a space in which he developed graphic work and design with the participation of young people who were formed as creators.

He was known, among many other issues, for having been a member of the Mira Group, from 1977 to 1982, project of artists committed to re -founding a political art far from stereotypes, in dialogue with the struggles and thinking of his time.

After the tragic death of Melecio Galván, the Mira group disjointed and Aquino Casas guarded the archives of the collective and guarded his partner’s work. In 2002, in front of companions of Mira, he delivered his artistic legacy to his daughter Amaranta Galván.

Author of linoleum works, xylography, screen printing, lithography, offset, Photocopy, heliography, stencil and ink injection, Aquinas Casas was a representative of the contemporary graphics and Mexican design that integrates traditional modes of production in dialogue with modern technologies.

Graduated from the National School of Plastic Arts (ENAP), today Faculty of Arts and Design, of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, there also studied the mastery. At that time, ENAP was still in the center of the Mexican capital. Aquino Casas witnessed first -hand of October 2, 1968. From 1974 to 2004 he worked at the School of Design, of the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (Inbal), where he founded, in 1993, the Postgraduate Unit and Continuing Education with the Master’s Creativity for Design.

In the 1990s, Aquino Casas formed the Block of Professional Art Schools, which managed and achieved the homologation of professional schools and research centers of the inbal. He was also a professor of the Benemérita Autonomous University of Puebla, the Metropolitan Autonomous University and the Miguel Cabrera Artistic Education Center, in Oaxaca.

Aquino Casas was born on July 18, 1942, in Nochixtlán, Oaxaca. As a member of the Mira Group, he made the Graphic statement on violence in Mexico City and the book The graph of 68: tribute to the student movement, Grupo Mira; Images and symbols of 68; Melecio Galván: tenderness, violence; Epic images in contemporary Mexico, e Images of rebellion and resistance: Oaxaca 2006.

Already as an artist, in the 70s he traveled with generation partners for California, and in Merced County they painted the mural Immigrants.

Then, the group moved to San Francisco, California, where the 7 of the race collaborated with the organization. With his Mira partner Rebeca Hidalgo, Aquino Casas redesigned the newspaper Enough already, Information body of the Latin community.

From 1999 to 2016 he was assigned to the National Center for Research, Documentation and Information of Plastic Arts of Inbal, where he published three books and participated in several editions of the Visual Arts Research and Documentation Meeting. In 2014 the compilation concluded Group 65 Mira Group.

He was an advisor to the Latin American Institute of Educational Communication, of the United Nations Educational, Science and Culture Organization, to teach courses in Latin America and the Caribbean; Also, of the National Association of Universities and Institutions of Higher Education as a guest to evaluate the area of ​​plastic and visual arts.

In 1996, the Trust for Culture and Arts Mexico-EU gave him the scholarship to perform the videos series From the newspaper to the poster: the Mexican and Chicana graph. From 1993 to 2000 he was a member of the National Creators System. In 2010, the extinct Fonca awarded him a scholarship in the area of ​​cultural projects. In 2014 he was president of the jury of the 13th Biennial of the Cartel in Mexico, and in 2015, Jury of the FONCA for the evaluation of young creators in the graphics area.

Aquino received, among other recognitions, that of the Combative Graphic Contest at the Autonomous University of Puebla, and the Intergrafik Grand Prix, Berlin 1980. Individually, the Single Prize of Cartel in the Centenary of the Death of Carlos Marx, of the UNAM, in 1983; the Acquisition Prize at the Plstic Arts Biennale of Inbal 1985. In 1993, the National Prize for Artistic Education and Research granted by the Inbal.

At the close of the edition, the teacher was veiled at the Núñez Banuet funeral of the Reforma neighborhood in the city of Oaxaca.