Helena Almeida: 'Seduzir' [To Seduce, 2002] (detail)

Collection

Dark & Carmin Trees. Berlin

Image caption
JUAN USLÉ

Dark & Carmin Trees. Berlin

  • 2003
  • Chromogenic print laminated with Perspex and attached to Dibond
  • 125 x 187,5 cm
  • Edition 4/5
  • Cat. F_109
  • Acquired in 2007
By:
Carlos Martín

Juan Uslé has a prominent place in the process of internationalisation of Spanish art in the 1980s and 1990s. The four works by him held in the Banco de España Collection come from different periods and show how his work changed as he strove for the personal form of expression for which he is now known worldwide. Uslé's exploration of photography can be seen clearly in the most recent of his works in the Collection: Dark & Carmin Trees. Berlin (2003). As he does in many other works involving photos, he seeks structures, networks and lights, which seem to liquefy in intermediate forms, as is the case here with the trees reflected and traversed by colour filters. Uslé makes frequent use of photographs in producing his pictures. This is also linked with his specific, epidermal vision of reality: a look at surfaces which suggest that there is 'something' behind them, behind his natural stagecraft.

Carlos Martín

 
By:
Beatriz Herráez
Juan Uslé
Santander 1964

Juan Uslé is a Spanish artist with a high international profile. In the mid-1980s he moved to New York, though he now also often spends time in Saro, Cantabria. He has received many major accolades, including the National Award for Plastic Arts in 2002, and has taken part in international exhibitions such as Documenta 9 in Kassel (1992), curated by Jan Hoet.

From the outset, Uslé's output has been characterised by his exploration of the problems of abstraction and his ability to generate narratives in pictorial form. His images are often built up by superimposing several layers (strata) of paint which rise up to the surface from the background of the canvas, like records of his work in the studio. Uslé organises his works into what he calls 'families'. These are groups that do not follow a specific chronological order, but are related in other ways so that they can be seen as a succession of images with no need for causal, dialectic links. His work is a record of time, a sort of 'non-logical' writing that is fixed in place on the canvas, permitting multiple, rhizomatic readings.

Recent stand-out exhibitions of his work include shows at the Contemporary Art Centre of Malaga (2015), the Luciano Benetton Foundation (Venice, Italy, 2015), the Centre for Contemporary Art of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela (2014), the Frith Street Gallery in New York (2014) and the Kunstmuseum in Bonn (2014). He took part in the 2005 Venice Biennale, Documenta in Kassel (1992), the Istanbul Biennial of 1992 and the São Paulo Biennial of 1985.

Beatriz Herráez

 
 
Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 3.