Alan Uglow

Twelve Standards Leaning , 1994

The British minimal artist Alan Uglow began in the early 1990s with the series of ‘Standards’ – horizontal and vertical lines on a white background – the work on groups of conceptually created images, mostly presented on small blocks of wood directly on the ground. While previously large formats were hung very low, the pictures now have direct contact with the ground. They become more part of the space in which they are located. The slight inclination of the picture surface provides an additional perspective, as it were a third dimension. Almost imperceptibly, the parallel lines begin to tilt. The diagonal, as a formal means of creating a perspective pictorial space, itself becomes an element between surface and space. In the next step, Allen Uglow photographed the ‘Standards’ in their spatial effect. This resulted in the next step, a series of screen printing based on four printing screens or printing processes: the photo of a ‘Standard’ leaning against the wall (black and white), then another white surface, resulting in, with the white of the paper, in three shades of white, as well as an additional color. Alan Uglow loved the repetition: a (self-developed) norm, a photographic portrait of this norm, twelve screenprints, one installation. Joy of repetition. Always the same, always different.