Benveniste Contemporary is pleased to announce Julião Sarmento, an exhibition of print projects by the Portuguese artist Julião Sarmento (1948 – 2021).

This show presents Sarmento’s collaborations with Benveniste Contemporary over the years, with special emphasis on his latest project, a polyptych titled L.A. Grounds.

In 2019 we were very lucky to collaborate for the first time with Julião Sarmento. During that first encounter we produced an artist book titled Barnett Newman, a publication made for our biannual subscription, The Print Subscribers Club. Before his untimely death in May 2021, Julião returned several times to our workshop where he carried out 3 more projects, all of which are now presented in this exhibition.

Unlike that first production, the following publications were executed exclusively in black and white, reflecting the artist’s interest in graphics and his way of approaching etching as a fundamental plastic research process.

Julião’s work is exhibited in the company of works by other artists. We hope that among the various exhibited pieces an active polyphonic dialogue will be generated that show how Sarmento addressed an essential issue in graphic art, through the use of black as the core colour of etching. Joining Julião Sarmento, the work by Tom Bell, Jacobo Castellano, Jerónimo Elespe, Fuentesal Arenillas, Diango Hernández, Juan López and Alison Wilding, are presented in the showroom of our space.