Angelo Musco (visual artist)

Angelo Musco (born 3 February 1973) is an Italian contemporary artist, best known for photographic surreal landscapes built by thousands of nude bodies, where the natural architectures and visionary landscapes are filled with the haunting mysticism of his own origins.

Musco was born in Naples, Italy, but has lived and worked in New York City and has since 1997. The youngest of five children, Angelo weighed in at 6.5 kilos (approximately 14.3 lbs.) when he was born after spending 11 months in the womb. A home birth to a child of this size was complicated; Angelo became stuck and turned blue, and the midwife panicked. Her determined extraction caused serious damage to both mother and baby. The newborn was rushed to the hospital, being in a critical state, and was stripped of his baby clothes. Musco's aunt, uncle, and father returned to the household with the soiled clothes, upon seeing which, Angelo's mother fell into a state of shock, thinking the child had died. The extreme stress spoilt her breast milk. Both mother and son survived, but young Musco was paralyzed on his right side for the first years of his life.

Musco's birth injury is called Erb's Palsy, a tearing of the neck, arm and shoulder nerves. It causes permanent damage and diminishes the function of the affected side of the body. An operation to fix the damage was scheduled, but when an illness impeded Angelo's participation on the scheduled day, his superstitious mother translated the sickness as an omen not to have the risky procedure. Instead, Angelo spent the first ten years of his life in physical therapy, to strengthen and restore the injured side of his body.

His early years were spent in school or at his father’s grocery store helping deliver the daily orders in the neighborhood Barra, just east of Naples. His parents sent him to a private Catholic school because they felt Angelo would need special attention. The school was situated on the water, and he was often entertained by high-speed boat chases as the police hunted down smugglers with black-market contraband. He would draw the boats not realizing how emblematic it was of the dangerous environment of living in Naples in the 1970s. He started university at the Academia Di Belle Arti in Naples and took a small apartment in the historic part of the city, which was very dangerous at that time. This new home was located next to the Napoli Sotteranea, a subterranean second city. The mysticism, history and legends of this old city destroyed by Mount Vesuvius were an ongoing fascination for the young artist.

For two semesters Musco lived in Granada, Spain as an exchange student. The school was well funded with wonderful labs and equipment for students to use. Musco was not well funded and work serving tea at night in an old Arab teteria to make money to survive since his family could only afford to cover his rent. Because purchasing materials for painting was also expensive, he started experimenting with installations and different materials such as fire, stones and the bodies of his colleagues. This was the first approach towards using the human body to create artistic forms. Musco visited New York City a few times for artistic research, and moved to the U.S. December 8, 1997. This date holds symbolic significance because it is the Catholic Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a public holiday in Italy.

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