Juli o Sarmento: Close Distance

Close Distance is both an exhibition and editorial project shared by Portuguese artist Julião Sarmento and British writer Adrian Searle. Artists, it is often said, always do the same thing, however different their works might look, even when they swap one medium for another, or seem to change direction or develop in unexpected ways. This is not necessarily a limitation, but more a signal of obsession, even if one cannot always say precisely what that obsession is. Artists, as the thinkers, are forever circling the same thing, even when they can’t put a name to it. In Adrian Searle’s words: “Sarmento’s work has a particular tone, a timbre, a calculated distance, a certain coolness, while its subject matter is the opposite: volatile, hot and unstable. [ ] It speaks of sex, violence, the repressed, the unconscionable and the deliberately, provocatively, inexplicable. This nice conceived and designed book collects the most important ways the artist use to create his works: painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and film.”