New Work

Post Box Fine Art.
London, U.K.

Exhibition text-

Francisco Ugarte, New Work
30th January – 19th February 2009

Post Box Gallery is pleased to present this exhibition of new work by the Mexican artist, Francisco Ugarte - his first solo exhibition in the UK. Francisco Ugarte originally trained as an architect and the architect’s pre-occupation with the distribution of mass and void, light and space are very much evident in his work as an artist. The video projection, 9

th January 2009, which is displayed in the main gallery space upstairs is a work that seeks to virtually extend the gallery into another space – a space which is in fact a miniature scale model of the gallery itself with openings cut so that the viewer can observe the shapes and shadows created by the sun passing across the sky. Ugarte placed the model for filming on his roof in Guadalajara in exactly the same North-South orientation as the room in Howick Place in which it is now displayed. This gesture at once ties the piece to its new surroundings, although filmed thousands of miles away, as well as highlighting the inevitable specificity of context – the sun, after all, does not pass over London in exactly the same manner as it does in Guadalajara. The movement and quality of light is also the principal subject matter of the exhibition’s other works. In the video of Lago Tapalpa, a reservoir near Ugarte’s home, we witness over the course of 10 minutes the water change from a dark mirror-like sheen as a small area of brighter, rougher water at first intrudes from the right, and eventually takes over the entire view. In 8

th August 2008 Ugarte presents a series of 16 photographs of the same reservoir taken over the course of one day. The timing of the photographs is not methodical or routine – the regularity of the repeated view is contrasted with the haphazard spacing between the moments of each image’s capture. Perhaps the most architectural of all the works on display is the new series of slide projections. Here, Ugarte replaces natural light with something artificial – as well as virtually obsolete in terms of technology. Each clear slide is covered in an arrangement of 3 different types of cut tape, so that varying transparencies are created. The illusion of perspective is offered briefly before we move on rapidly to the next arrangement – something akin to the body’s visual relationship to its surroundings as we move through space.

Post Box Gallery
Howick Place, London, SW1P 1BB