작품 상세

JUAN UGALDE (Bilbao, 1958). Untitled, 1997. Mixed media (gouache, ink and collage) on paper. With label of the Galería Fúcares (Madrid) on the back. Signed and dated in the lower right-hand corner. Provenance: private collection conceived since the 1970s between London and Madrid. Measurements: 70 x 50 cm; 81 x 61 cm (frame). It is usual in Ugalde's work of the nineties to combine contradictory languages, dissimilar realities, visual paradoxes, as in this case the meeting of the expressionist brushstroke, the abstract line and the irruption of an apparently discordant figurative element. In this case the artist seems to propose two worlds, an underground one dominated by solitude, shadows and inconcrete spaces, and an exterior one dedicated to leisure, which appears defined with clean forms. Juan Ugalde began his artistic training at the School of Fine Arts in Madrid. In 1986 he moved to New York thanks to a Fullbright scholarship, and there he formed the group Estrujenbank together with his wife, Mariano Lozano and Dionisio Cañas. It was a group of Spanish artists recognised as one of the most important of the late 20th century. Their creative horizons seemed to have no limits, giving rise to performances, videos, as well as the creation of a museum space, the Estrujenbank Exhibition Hall. It was in this space that a new way of understanding art was developed, transmitting it from a different point of view to the institutional and commercial art of the time. Thanks to this artistic activity, Juan Ugalde became known in the mid-eighties with a work that explored the language proposed by abstract expressionism, although nowadays his works present spaces where painting and photography meet. Ugalde's work is represented in different centres of great artistic relevance such as the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo, the Museo de Bellas Artes de Álava, the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the Artium in Vitoria, the MUSAC in León, the Coca-Cola, La Caixa, Banesto, ICO and Marcelino Botín Foundations, and in the collection of the Bank of Spain.