Neil Maurer

photography

Highway Series

#261 Houston

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Artist Statement

The aesthetic reference, which has fueled my fascination with these highway constructions, is a bit unusual. It comes from my experience in visiting the old Mosque in Cordoba, Spain. The mosque covers a city block and is a tall one-story horizontal space supported by a grid work of columns. It is quiet, meditative and dark inside, with a calming horizontality. But in one corner a strong light illuminates the arches and invades the darkness. As I walked toward that light I found myself at an arched doorway of a classic Spanish cathedral. The Spaniards, I later learned, built it into the mosque after they forced the Moors out of Spain. The Spaniards decided not to destroy the mosque, but wanted to put a Catholic stamp on it. You can look out at the mesmerizing horizontality of the Moorish architecture, and then up at the soaring verticality of a European cathedral. The visual experience is captivating.

In the highway overpasses the supporting grid work of cement columns produce the dark areas, which echo those in the mosque. The soaring curving ramps of the interchange overpasses evoke the verticality of the cathedral.

In addition, I am treating this subject in a way that retains this horizontal and vertical reference, yet produces a sense of abstraction. One element I have adjusted is to reduce the sense of depth of any sky that appears. Clouds and other references to deep space I have omitted. In part this comes naturally, because the exposures must be long to produce detail in the shadows underneath, which overexposes the bright sky, producing a white areas. But if any sense of depth remains I usually remove it. This causes the white spaces to move forward visually making them compete with the columns and roadways. This flattening produces a representation of these interchanges, which you may not encounter looking directly at them. This possibility in photographing to capture a certain reality, yet transform it, has always fascinated me

NEIL MAURER   

Photographer/Educator

Professor

The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX

Education

MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN PHOTOGRAPHY '75; Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

BACHELOR OF ARTS IN SOCIOLOGY '62; Brown University, Providence, RI

Fellowships/Grants

MID-AMERICA ARTS ALLIANCE/NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS;   Artist's Grant; 1995

FULBRIGHT-HAYS SENIOR LECTURER;   Central University, Quito, Ecuador 1990

FULBRIGHT-HAYS GRANT IN PHOTOGRAPHY; Lima, Peru; 1975

Photographs in Collections (selected)

BROOKLYN MUSEUM; Brooklyn, NY

CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART; Washington, DC

HARRY RANSOM HUMANITIES RESEARCH CENTER; The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; Washington, DC

MUSEUM OF ART; Providence, RI

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS; Houston, TX

MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTS; Odense, Denmark

MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY; Charleroi, Belgium

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART; New York, NY

SAN ANTONIO MUSEUM OF ART; San Antonio, TX

Solo Exhibitions (selected)

2005       University of Mexico at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX

2004       Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, TX

2001       Galería Artes, Quito, Ecuador. Show, toured Ecuador,. Sponsored by U.S. Embassy.

2000       Center for Spirituality and the Arts, San Antonio, TX.

2000       PEREZ QUESADA GALLERY, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

2000       FOTOFEST 2000, Houston, TX,   Exhibition with Chema Madoz

1999      THE ARTISTS' GALLERY, San Antonio, TX.

1996      SILVER EYE CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY, Pittsburgh, PA.

1992      NEW GALLERY; Houston, TX

1990      ART FORUM GALLERY; Quito, Ecuador

1988      MARCUSE PFEIFER GALLERY; New York, NY

1986      MUSEO CAMILO EGAS; Quito, Ecuador

1979      MUSEUM OF ART; Providence, RI

1977      CARL SIEMBAB GALLERY; Boston, MA

1977     PRAKAPAS GALLERY; New York, NY

1973     CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART; Washington, DC

Group Exhibitions (selected)

2005     FOTOFEST, touring show, Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia & other cities

2000    ART LEAGUE MUSEUM, San Antonio, TX

1995    THE NEW GALLERY, Houston, TX

1994    AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY: A History in Pictures, San Antonio,TX, Museum of Art

1989    RECENT ACQUISITIONS; Museum of Fine Arts; Houston, TX

1988    LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION;

          Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1987   CHAIRS; Witkin Gallery; New York, NY            

1986   NORTH AMERICAN INVITATIONAL; Florida Institute of Technology; Jensen Beach, FL