Julião Sarmento
Julião Sarmento's works spans a wide variety of media, ranging from painting, drawing, sculpture to photography, film, and video, as well as sound and installations and, most recently, live performances. In a technique similar to that used in literature, with multiple strands of narratives separated by characters, space, and time, Sarmento often connects different individual elements with references to literature, photography, film, art history, or mass media to create mysterious, often disturbing visual worlds involving eroticism, violence, voyeurism, ambiguity and death. This particular choice of themes is due to Sarmento’s upbringing in Portugal under the fascistic dictatorship of Salazar. Everything that could stimulate a critical mind or an infringement of morality (e.g. nudity or sex) was prohibited. At a certain age, he then came into contact with the philosophy of the French existentialists, jazz and American magazines of Avant-Garde art, which influenced his artistic practice strongly.
Considered one of the most important artists of his generation, Julião Sarmento has exhibited extensively since the 1970s. Significant solo exhibitions of Julião Sarmento at international institutions include Haus der Kunst, München; GAM, Torino; Tate Modern, London; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; CAC, Malaga; White Nights, A Retrospective at Museu Serralves, Porto; and CAC, Cincinnati. He also participated in numerous group exhibitions including Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M), Madrid; Super 8 at Yerba Buena centre for the Arts, San Francisco; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Centro de Arte Moderna, Lisbon. Sarmento represented Portugal at the 46th Venice Biennale in 1997 and he was also included in Documenta 7 and 8, the Venice Biennale (1980 and 2001), and the São Paulo Biennale.
His work is represented in many international collections, including Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Fundação de Serralves, Porto; Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York; Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; LACMA, Los Angeles; MACBA Barcelona; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; MoMA, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and Tate Collection, London.
Julião Sarmento is represented by the following galleries;
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Galeria Fortes Vilaça, Sao Paulo
Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisbon
Pilar Corrias, London
Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica
Daniel Templon, Paris / Brussels
Galleria Alessandra Bonomo, Rome
Galeria Heinrich Ehrhardt, Madrid
You can also view more work of Julião Sarmento on his own website.
