Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1944, he studied painting with Iberê Camargo at the Instituto de Belas Artes in 1963 and graduated in Psychology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He participated in some of the main Brazilian exhibitions of the 60s, “Opinião 66“ and “Nova Objetividade Brasileira“, both at MAM in Rio de Janeiro, as well as numerous group shows, such as the 9th, 20th and 29th editions of the Bienal de São Paulo ( 1967,1989, 2010 and 10); the 1977th edition of the Paris Biennial (5); and the 2005th edition of the Mercosul Biennial (1974). He held several individual exhibitions, the first in 1976 at Galeria Luiz Buarque de Hollanda and Paulo Bittencourt and in XNUMX a second individual at MAM / RJ.
In the 1970s, he lived in France where he received a doctorate in Arts. Since returning to Brazil in 1980, he has participated in numerous exhibitions. Among the various individual exhibitions, the most important are “Arte e Politica 1966 – 1976“, at the Museums of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Bahia (1996-1997); ˜”Carlos Zilio”, at the Centro de Arte Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro (2000), which covered his work in the 90s; and “Pinturas Sobre Papel“, at Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro (2005), and at Pinacoteca de São Paulo Station (2006). His most recent group exhibitions were: “Imagine Brazil“ (Olso, Lyon Doha, São Paulo and Montreal, 2013-2015); “Possibilities of the object – Experiments in Modern and Contemporary Brazilian Art“ (Edinburgh, 2015) and “Transmissions art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960-1980“ (MoMA, New York, 2015), “Past/Future/Present“ , Phoenix Art Museum/MAM-SP (Phoenix, 2017) and Knife in the flash, PAC Padiglione dÁrte Contemporânea (Milan, 2018)
Zilio, was a professor at the School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). In 2018, Cosac Naify published the book Carlos Zilio, organized by Paulo Venâncio Filho, about his artistic production. Zilio has been represented in São Paulo by Galeria Raquel Arnaud since 1997, where he held several exhibitions, the last one being in 2016. In Rio de Janeiro he has been represented since 2018 by Galeria Cassia Bomeny. His two most recent solo shows were at MAM/RJ in 2016 and at Galeria Cassia Bomeny in 2019. His works are present in several institutions, such as the Museums of Contemporary Art in São Paulo, Niterói and Paraná, at Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, at the Museums of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and at the Museums of Modern Art in New York (MoMA).