Julião Sarmento was one of the pioneers of conceptual art in Portugal. Later, his work dealt with languages such as painting, sculpture and video. His oeuvre makes use of a voyeuristic eroticism. These are images with little color, seen at a glance or reduced to suggestive silhouettes. Sarmento incorporates excerpts of text in his surfaces, associations with cinema, literature and philosophy. His sculptures and installations also include erotic elements, taking feminine sexuality as a theme and object of inquiry.
Some of his recent solo exhibitions include Julião Sarmento (Catalogue), MUDAS Contemporary Art Museum Madeira, Calheta, Ilha da Madeira, Portugal (2021); A linha que fecha também abre, MNAA – Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisboa, Portugal (2020) Fragmentos da Viagem na obra de Julião Sarmento, Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea do Chiado, Lisboa, Portugal (2020); Leopard in a Cage, Centro Internacional das Artes José de Guimarães, Guimarães, Portugal (2018) e La chose, même – The real thing, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa, Portugal (2016). His works were also included in the group shows Coreografia da Atenção, Museu de Almada, Portugal (2021; Matéria Luminal, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisboa, Portugal (2021); Pulse, Carpintaria, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil (2020) and Second Nature: Portuguese Contemporary Art from the EDP Foundation Collection, The Kreeger Museum, Washington, USA (2018).
Sarmento has works included in important public collections, su chas CCB – Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, Portugal; Center for Contemporary Art, CCA Kitakyushu, Kitakyushu, Japan; Centre Pompidou – Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal; CGAC; Centro Galego de Arte Contemporânea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain; Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, USA; MACBA – Museu d ́Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; Malmö konstmuseum, Malmö, Sweden; MNAC – Museu do Chiado, Lisboa, Portugal; MoCA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; MSU – Muzej Suvremene Umjetnosti / Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia; MuHKA – Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium; Museu Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal; SFMoMA – San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA; Sintra Museu de Arte Moderna, Sintra, Portugal; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; Staatsgalerie Moderne Kunst, Munich, Germany; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Tate Modern, London, UK and Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel.