Julião Sarmento

Critical text

Julião Sarmento (1948–2021, Lisbon) has conducted visual research since the 1970s, operating with traditional media – painting, sculpture, installation –, film languages and sound research. His narrative universe feeds on an existential approach that has prompted him to investigate the complexity of interpersonal relationships and the contradictions that arise when emotional ties take form inside domestic and social contexts. Works belonging to different periods of his career reveal the ability of the artist – who recently passed away – to look to the past – to myths, literature and art history – while also keeping his focus on the present. A personal gaze, respectful of his own perceptions, developed through a variety of expressive forms. The tonal studies of the monochromes convey a timeless, mystical tension; the drawings constructed around the act of erasure and re-inscription narrate the complexity of human relations; the more recent pieces – like the sculptural object titled Cazador en su puesto, cazador al acecho (2020), made last year during the health emergency and inserted in a wider ranging research project on the graphic work of Francisco Goya – link back to youthful studies of architecture, giving rise to a new narrative suspended between the cosmic and human dimensions. Sarmento took part in many international exhibitions (Documenta 7, Documenta 8, the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, the 49th Venice Art Biennale, the 25th Biennial of Sao Paulo), and represented Portugal at the 46th Venice Biennale.

Text by Lorenzo Giusti