Julião Sarmento

Julião Sarmento (* 1948, † 2021, Lisbon, Portugal) is considered the most important contemporary artist of Portugal. The Lisbon-born artist held a lectureship at the art academy in Kitakyūshū, Japan, and Munich. His work of art has gained increasing attention since he represented Portugal at the Biennale di Venezia in 1997. He has been dealing with conceptual art since the 70s by developing ambiguous installations and collage that combine photography, video, mass media, painting, sculpture and drawing. From 1980 onwards he also created pure paintings and drawings, which are characterised by their interplay of pastose paint applications and fine lines. The human body and its expression are central in his work and the imagery is often linked with subjects like violence, death and Eros. In the context of certain solo exhibitions the artist works on specific series. For example the exhibition “Books & Films” at the Galerie Klüser featured works that were originated for this show in particular. The gallery has been representing Sarmento since 1986 and is the publisher of several of his editions and catalogues. Since 1979 Sarmento’s work has been displayed in many exhibitions in Europe, America and Japan. The Haus der Kunst in Munich devoted a large retrospective with 80 works to the artist in 1997.