Page 75 - Studio International - May 1974

New work: RE

Euan Uglow's

'diagonal' VIE
The Euan Uglow retrospective
exhibition is at the Whitechapel
Art Gallery, London, 16 April-12 May.
The route and destination of an
artist's intentions have always been W
my first and most sustaining point of
contact with his work. Appearance is
of less interest than result and result 9
is of no interest at all if it does not
demonstrate the strategy of the
artist's passage from intention to
result. To understand that the gap
between intention and result is a
problem because it is the most
critical point of the artist's effort is not
quite correct; it is an integral part of
creative action. It is the part of the
action that allows the artist to
eliminate pre-judgement or
forecasts of the value of end-
appearance of work. It is Uglow's
submission to this fact which I find
engaging. It is the organization of his
strategy and its conclusion which I
find irresistible. But here I shall
concentrate on demonstrating only
the initial mechanics of Uglow's idea
of the diagonal in one of his most
recent paintings.
I suppose it might be obvious to
remark that an idea accurately
explained will be more accurately
received yet this is not wholly
acceptable to some because the
display of idea is often confused with
the style of its display. (It is not
impossible to imagine that an idea of
our time may be successfully
projected by practising, word for word,
Alberti's theory of painting.)
It is Uglow's intention to
construct the idea of the diagonal as
accurately as possible. The fact that
the idea includes the human form is
important only because he chooses to
do so. The arrival of an image in his
work is no more and no less
significant than the arrival of an index
in Hanne Darboven's work, both are
forms of information that have been
with us for centuries. The index as an
art form has the advantage, at this
moment, of carrying a minimum of
style reference whereas the human
image as an art form carries the
maximum. For this and many other
reasons it has always been subjected
to the most intense analysis and
celebration. The intensity of Uglow's
analysis is dependent on the accuracy
of idea and not likeness.
It is useful here to illustrate in the
four accompanying photographs the
area which is being used by Uglow
for The Diagonal, the title of his
current painting. The chair is
normally occupied by a figure seated
in a diagonal position. A further
photograph, in which the perimeter
is most coincident with that of the
canvas, had been enlarged, traced
and annotated. In the canvas itself
the diagonal of the square equals the
ratio of 1.0 to 1.414.
David Troostwyk