Francisco Ugarte

Untitled (A window display project) | 2014

It is through space that we connect with the world around us, and it gives us the chance to attribute meanings to it. Franciso Ugarte, architect and visual artist, has chosen a window display to realize its own nature: through the use of light he reveals the window display’s material condition, uncovers its true meaning, and highlights the position the subject takes while gazing at it.

The light helps us recognize the place, because once enlightened it becomes exposed as a space and validates itself as a concept. Window displays have been created to display valuable objects. However, in this case what is meant to be exhibited is the concept of the window display itself. The light manages to go through the gaps of the vitrine generating in the spectator, on one hand, the idea of limit due to the inability to see beyond the borders of its architecture and, on the other hand, a desire to see the source of light.
The artist visualizes the window display by simultaneously placing us outside of it as well as within it. Outside it, because a window display is not a space designed to be walked-through, but to be observed; within it, because the display casts a form of power that defines how we approach objects.

This way, the active and participatory spectator completes the piece as they recognize themselves as part of it. While facing this display, the spectator somehow becomes a participant by succumbing to what the architecture demands from them: observe, but now fully consciously of observing.
-Helena Lugo