The exhibition VOID: Júlio Pomar e Julião Sarmento continued a programme of exhibitions at the Atelier-Museu that aims to connect Júlio Pomar’s work with the work of other artists and establish new linkages between the painter’s work and contemporaneity.
As such, this exhibition was conceived from the very beginning as a specific intervention in the Atelier-Museu’s space, where Júlio Pomar and Julião Sarmento, through paintings and drawings scrutinise the concept of the ‘Void’, with the latter having been invited to design the exhibition’s graphic image.
The concept of the ‘void” – a term that can be understood to mean an empty or hollowed out space; something that disappears in a space; something that is experienced as loss or privation; a gap or an opening…
Julião Sarmento presented a series of works on canvas and paper with various literary references, devoid of any figuration. Júlio Pomar showed paintings and drawings made in the 1960s, including paintings of the Paris underground, and drawings of various natural elements.
Over the course of the exhibition, a catalogue was published by Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar/ Documenta, featuring essays and images of the works in the space.
Each of these exhibitions was accompanied by the publication of an interview with each of the invited artists carried out over a lengthly period of time. Through the voice of each artist, readers will be able to understand the motivations and bases inherent in their works.
Julião Sarmento is one of Portugal’s most internationally renowned artists. Since the 1970s, he has forged a unique path in terms of representing the human figure in an ambiguous setting, generally associated with desire, violence, compulsiveness, and sexuality, using and combining different media, such as photography, video, installations, painting, and printmaking. Following a stay in London (1964-1965), Julião Sarmento’s career began at the Architecture course at the Escola Superior de Belas-Artes de Lisboa (ESBAL) from 1967 to 1974, which he never completed.
Julião Sarmento held his first individual exhibition in 1976 at the Modern Art Gallery at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes (SNBA), and was one of the artists to participate in the key collective exhibition ‘Depois do Modernismo’ [After Modernism], also held at the SNBA. In 1997, he represented Portugal at the 47th Venice Biennale. Highlights of his career include participation in various important contemporary art events: documenta 7 and 8 (in 1982 and 1987 respectively), the 11th Paris Biennial in 1980, the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001, and the 25th S. Paulo Biennial in 2002, among other projects which have lent him significant international visibility. Equally relevant are his collaborations with Atom Egoyan at the 48th Venice Biennale in 2001, and with John Baldessari and Lawrence Weiner on a film made in 2004.
Extensively reflected in criticism over the last thirty years – Germano Celant, Alexandre Melo, Nancy Spector, Delfim Sardo, Hubertus Gabner, James Lingwood, Adrian Searle, Louise Neri, among others –, Julião Sarmento has exhibited his work at prominent national and international institutions: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Serralves Foundation, Museo de Bellas Artes de Málaga, Luís Cernuda Foundation, in Seville, IVAM, in Valencía, the Guggenheim, in New York, and the Van Abbemusem, Witte de With and Stedelijk Museum in the Netherlands.