Chelsea, New York
Juan Uslé
Cien Dias de Abril
Lelong & CoGalerie Lelong, New York, is pleased to present an upcoming solo exhibition by Juan Uslé, Cien Dias de Abril, the artist's second with the gallery. The exhibition present new paintings through which the artist advances his exploration of rhythmic abstraction, creating compositions that register the passage of time and invoke a sense of place, producing works that are at once deeply personal and universally resonant. Uslé's distinctive approach centers on rhythmic, short brushstrokes arranged in bands of shimmering color. By shifting between opaque and transparent passages, he generates a dynamic sense of movement across the surface. Beyond their formal qualities, the titles of his works—such as Breathing Earth, Partitura urbana [Urban Score], 21 días de abril [21 Days of April], and Transitum [Transition]—offer insight into the poetic and conceptual undercurrents of his practice. For Uslé, painting becomes a vessel for sensorial experience and memory, with each work serving as a container of lived time that can be both past present and future, expressed clearly in the mysterious title, Cien Dias de Abril. Presented for the first time in this exhibition are new works from Soñé que revelabas [I Dreamt That You Revealed], a series that began in 1997 and remains the largest connected body of work in the artist's practice. Rendered in monochromatic palettes of blue and black, these towering canvases—each measuring at least nine feet tall—overwhelm the viewer in their monolithic and single-minded purpose-to translate the internal rhythms of the body to a visual register. In a selection of distinct yet formally complementary works, Uslé deepens his exploration of light and color in a broadened palette of jewel tones. Breathing Earth (2025), anchors itself in a muted fuchsia, over which transparent blue and black bands drift, merging fluidly with the ground to allow the underlying hues to subtly emerge. In 21 dias de abril (2024), the artist turns to the possibilities of opacity, juxtaposing black rows with blue and purple brushstrokes, emphasizing the delicate verticality of his signature mark-making. These paintings exemplify the ways in which Uslé processes the dualities of presence and absence, light and dark, movement and stillness. Juan Uslé is widely recognized for vivid paintings and works on paper that engage the viewer through entrancing rhythmic patterns that source inspiration from memories lived and dreamt. Over the course of four decades, Juan Uslé has approached his medium through both a representational and abstract lens, sometimes incorporating both in a single work. In more recent years, a central focus for the artist has been using the element of light to generate emotion rather than volume. In March 2020, Uslé was announced as the 13th winner of The Daniel and Florence Guerlain Drawing Prize. He participated in the Venice Biennale (2005); Documenta IX (1992); the Istanbul Biennial (1992); and the Bienal de São Paulo (1985). Uslé’s work is included in public collections around the world including that of the Albright Knox Museum, Buffalo, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Colección Arte Contemporáneo Fundación la Caixa, Barcelona; IMMA, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; MACBA, Museu d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée d’Art Moderne, Luxemburg; Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal; SMAK, Stedelïjk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gante; Tate Modern, London. Other solo museum exhibitions of the artist’s work have been presented at Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany; Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain; Fundacion Marcelino Botin, Santander, Spain; Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain; SMAK, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuale Kunst, Gante, Belgium; Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas; IMMA, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain. Uslé was born in Santander, Spain, in 1954. He currently lives and works between New York City and Saro, Spain.