JULIÃO SARMENTO ‘Guest or Host?’

Julião Sarmento. Guest or Host? is the first big solo exhibition of Portuguese artist Julião Sarmento on the Canary Islands (Lisbon, 1948). Sarmento is one of the most outstanding and influential artists within the context of international contemporary art. For the exhibition, paintings, sculptures, drawings, photos, videos, installations and performances ranging from the beginning of the eighties to nowadays were drawn together, with the purpose of showing the viewer the multi-directional nature of the artist’s work. The title of the exhibition, Guest or Host?, implies the impossibility to identify the place where we put ourselves before Julião Sarmento’s works, especially with respect to his performances, where the artist himself plays the host by defining the scene; but at the same time he’s the guest, since he stays outside of it. The exhibition tour has been designed as a walk through the constant themes of Sarmento’s work, such as eroticism, memory and desire, filtered through different cultural allusions, mostly from literature and film. Julião Sarmento’s artistic career started at the end of the sixties and on several occasions has had a place in exhibitions such as Kassel’s Documenta and the Venice Biennale. In 2010, the Tate Modern Gallery of London assigned a permanent exhibition hall only for his work.

Julião Sarmento. Guest or Host? has been coproduced by the arts centre Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the foundation Fundación Luis Seoane de A Coruña.

For the exhibition, a meticulous publication has been prepared, which reviews the most relevant work of the last forty years in Julião Sarmento’s career, and focuses specially on the works that most clearly help us visualize the different forms of desire conceived by the Portuguese artist. With this in mind, we include a thorough essay by David Barro –curator of the exhibition–, a text by Omar-Pascual Castillo and the innovative touch of some written sources –like Raymond Carver and Marguerite Duras– that have had something to say about Sarmento’s art work throughout the years.

David Barro
Curator

IMAGE GALLERIES

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