José Luís Neto
Entre dois grãos de areia
28 MARCH 2025 - 24 MAY 2025
José Luís Neto was born in Satão, 1966. He studied in Lisbon, where he completed the Photography Course at Ar.Co (Centro de Arte e Comunicação Visual), and London, where he carried out an individual project, Ideia de Luz, at the Royal College of Art. He has had regular exhibitions of his work in Portugal and abroad since the early 1990s, while also participating in biennials, art fairs and photography conventions. Among his most recent group shows were the Bes Photo 2005 (Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, 2005) and his participation in the exhibition About Face. Photography and the Death of the Portrait (Hayward Gallery, London, 2004).
He has exhibited individually at Circulo de Bellas Artes (High Speed Press Plate, Madrid, 2007), Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian’s Centre of Modern Art (Continuum, Lisbon, 2005) and Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (Anónimo, Lisbon, 2005).
He has taken part in group exhibitions in national and international museums and institutions, including: Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon; Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon; Museu Gulbenkian/
Coleção Moderna, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; Embassy of Portugal, Washington; Museu Afro-Brasil, São Paulo; Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid; Museu da Ciência, Coimbra; the Carmona e Costa Foundation, Lisbon; the Serralves Museum, Porto; the Electricity Museum, Lisbon; the Belém Cultural Centre, Lisbon; the Fundación Foto Colectania, Barcelona; the Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne; the Visual Arts Centre, Coimbra; Culturgest, Lisbon; and the Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Rotterdam.
José Luís Neto is the recipient of several prizes, including the BesPhoto award for 2005 and the Special Jury Prize of the 47th Salon D’Art Contemporain de Montrouge (2002). His work is featured in numerous books and catalogues, and is represented in several public and private collections, such as those of Museum Folkwang (Essen), Centro Português de Fotografia (Porto), Arquivo Fotográfico Municipal de Lisboa, CAM – Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon), Fundação de Serralves (Porto), Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento (Lisbon) and Fundació Foto Colectania (Barcelona).
"Basically, it’s a way of finding within my research, within the idea of revealing the image, something that I always had the intention to do. Which is to bring photography closer to the idea of drawing, the idea of painting. If I were a painter, I would probably paint like this. If I were someone who draws, I would probably be drawing, not only in the way of some of these images, but also in previous series, in which I explore this idea a lot, even in analog language."
José Luís Neto in conversation with Miguel Nabinho
