João Louro

João Louro was born in Lisbon in 1963, where he lives and works. He studied Architecture at the University of Lisbon and Painting at Ar.Co - Centro de Artes e Comunicação Visual. He taught Photography as a Media at Aula do Risco. 

Expressly indebted to the artistic legacy of the 20th century, João Louro has been working based on his interest in minimal and conceptual art, maintaining references to the first historical vanguards. Using various formalizations, such as painting, sculpture, photography, video or installation, Louro's work frequently includes text. The relationship between visual and written language increases its constellation of references that extends to literature and philosophy, evoking authors such as Walter Benjamin, Guy Debord, Georges Bataille, or Blanchot. In this context, the written sign gains a central place that overlaps the figuration. Without erasing the notion of image, conferred for instance through the chosen source, Louro works on the idea of substitution, of which the Dead End series is an example, where objects similar to road signs display writer's names and concepts, instead of the usual information about cities and towns. The interrelationship between the presentation devices and the meaning of the text is evident in works such as Inferno (Paris, London, New York, Milano), 2001, where a system of neon lights, common to street advertising, is used. Also noteworthy is the Blind Image series, composed of captioned monochrome plane paintings, where the viewer's action is activated through their own reflection in the work.

Chronologically, the participation in the 1st Rotterdam Manifesto in 1996 and in the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005 stands out. From the numerous solo exhibitions he has presented since the 1990s, the following are selected: Runaway Car Crashed #2, Serralves Museum, 2000; La pensée et l'erreur, Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona, 2001; East International, Norwich, 2002; Blind Runner, CCB, 2004; Smuggling, Elvas Museum of Contemporary Art, 2015; Linguistic Ground Zero, MAAT, 2018. João Louro represented Portugal at the 2015 Venice Biennale, with the exhibition I Will Be Your Mirror | Poems and Problems. His work is represented in national and international collections.

 

RS, setembro 2020