Exhibition from September 25th until November 9th 2013

In the frame of her themed exhibitions, Nathalie Parienté is proud to present a new show devoted to the Spanish artist Juan Ugalde. Gathering around 20 paintings and collages produced between 2006 and 2012, this exhibition stimulates the reflection on the concerns linked to ultra-urbanization and on other consequences of the post-capitalist society.

Born in Bilbao in 1958, Juan Ugalde lives between Madrid (El Escorial) and Berlin. He is one of the major figures of Spanish contemporary painting. Having studied architecture, fine arts and philosophy, in 1998 the Spanish ministry of Culture awarded him with a grant for young artists. In 1986, he was invited to a residence in New York by the Latin-North-American Committee of the Fullbright Program, where he lived and worked until 1989.

Between 1989 and 1993, he devoted himself to the magazine and exhibition space of the group Estrujenbank, formed by his wife Patricia Gadea, the poet Dionisio Cañas, the painter Mariano Lozano and himself. Its popular figurative expressionist work can be compared in its intentions to Subway Art, or rather to a Spanish version Pop Art. It integrates within the pictorial space characters and situations taken from comics of Ibáñez, hieroglyphs and kitsch landscapes. Their point wasn’t as much the appropriation of elements from the everyday life itself, but rather the poetic and ironic transgression. In 1992, they obtained the first Prize for Painting given by l’Oréal.

During the years 90’s and 2000s, Juan Ugalde develops a sociopolitical work merging painting and photographs. A reflection on contemporary Spain, the deep Spain, the Spain of the city suburbs, countrymen on their Sunday dresses, in a work that’s more analytic and conceptual, giving birth to new forms of ideological commitment. (Altadis Prize, 2000)

2006 marks a significant turning point in his work. Focused again on painting and collage, silkscreen, digital art and video animation, he goes beyond the political commentary, considering it ineffective. « I’m interested on the contemporary collage in which we live, formed by a plethora of images which emerge from themselves, in movement, juxtaposing, covering up, colliding in endless tensions. Then they crystallize, and the picture is complete… My images depict the loneliness of man on an environment that he can’t grasp. How do we survive to the mutations that we suffer ? How do we put order to this flow ? This recent work is more pictorial, including less photographs than before. Forms appear by themselves, without premeditation or sketch. In this sense, it’s linked to meditation, to zen, to Kundalini yoga, to the mystic as it could be understood by Giovanni Bellini, to psychedelia, to Frank Zappa,… »

His work is featured in the collections of the most prestigious Spanish cultural institutions, such as : Artium, Vitoria, Colección ACS, Madrid, Colección Altadis, Colección Arte Contemporáneo, Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, Colección Ayuntamiento de Madrid, Colección Ayuntamiento de Pamplona, Colección Ayuntamiento de Vitoria, Colección Banco de España, Madrid, Colección Banesto, Madrid, Colección de Arte Contemporáneo, Fundación ”la Caixa”, Barcelona, Colección Gobierno Vasco Colección L’Oreal, Madrid, Colección Universidad de Valencia, Patronato Martínez Guerricabeitia, Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid, Comunidad Autónoma de Murcia, Diputación Provincial de Málaga, Fundación Coca-Cola España, Madrid, Fundación Marcelino Botín, Santander, Instituto de la Juventud, Madrid, Koldo Mitxelena Kulturenea, San Sebastián, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Unión Fenosa, La Coruña, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.

Exhibition : « Juan Ugalde » Chez Nathalie Parienté – 38 Wilson Platform – 38 avenue du Président Wilson 75116 Paris

By appointment only. Cell. : 06 08 54 57 44