João Louro

The book produced to accompany the presence of João Louro (*1963 in Lisbon) as the official representative of Portugal at the 56th Venice Biennale with the exhibition I Will Be Your Mirror—Poems and Problems is presented as the state of the art of Louro’s oeuvre, which, since the nineties, has developed a well-informed questioning of the meaning of the image as an object or sign and of language as a symbolic representation. Louro is an intensely conceptual artist, one whose intensity is demonstrated in his presentation and interpretation of the world. He is interested in generating new semantic aspects and raising doubts about norms accepted by our visual culture. The texts by María de Corral, Paulo Herkenhoff, Delfim Sardo, and Nuno Crespo, authors who have a deep knowledge of João Louro’s work, are accompanied by images that show us the overall body of João Louro's production, including some works produced specifically for this exhibition.