Portguese artist Julião Sarmento is known for his unique multi-media visual language. This combines film, video, sound, painting, sculpture and installations.
His own work often deals with interpersonal relationships and themes such as psychological interaction, sensuality, voyeurism and transgression.
Sarmento’s upcoming exhibition in Barcelona offers a dialogue between the works of different artists, with pieces originating from three different museums— Barcelona’s MACBA and CaixaForum, and Lisbon’s CAM from the Gulbenkian Foundation.
Opening on February the 11th at the CaixaForum, in this exhibition Sarmento assumes the role of curator and narrator, presiding over a selection of artwork from different periods. These all evolve around an enigmatic painting by the 19th-century French artist, Edgar Degas, one of the founders of the Impressionism movement.
Sarmento’s objective in combining and juxtaposing diverse ideas and images is to stimulate the viewer’s imagination, and lead them to a variety of individual interpretations and new takes upon the works included.
Among the featured artists is Spanish sculptor Juan Muñoz. His large-scale installation, The Wasteland (1987), invites the spectator to be deceived by its optical, Roman-inspired floor.
Also included is a short film by Gabriel Abrantes, Olympia I&II (2006), a diptych of two reconstitutions of Manet’s Olympia. The first tableau features Katie dressed as Olympia; the second one shows Abrantes in a transvestite version of the famous figure. The film deconstructs the mythical aura of the work while simultaneously celebrating its legacy.
Enjoy Sarmento’s vision from February the 11th to March the 10th 2016 at the Caixa Forum.
