Untitled Urbanscape 5 2004

The buildings and parking lots in Maureen Brodbeck’s photographs occupy no space in the perceptions of passersby, they are so unimposing that their existence seems almost doubtful. Materially existent, they are so far removed from memory that they, through their reconstruction of a series of perceptions, leave behind a blank canvas, a classical mental blank.  Where was I all day today on my way from A to B?  Asking these kinds of questions and completely reconstructing the sequence of a day in retrospect went out of style a long time ago.   We got used to our perceptions being perforated, fragmented and splintered in view of the daily impressions of the masses.  We’ve come to terms with our mental blanks. 

Maureen Brodbeck’s concern is tracing the individual and personal history in the seemingly banal, and  wresting anonymous places from their recording and surveillance grids.  From the seemingly unspecified nothingness arise (partially found, and partially inserted afterwards) massive bodies, or actually monochrome surfaces which optically metamorphose through the photographically detailed periphery into monumental sculptures. Behind the urban abyss, an unexpected vitality can unfold through more careful contemplation, a Genius loci always standing, a sensual secret.  Maureen Brodbeck registers this secret to memory and metamorphoses it into a visual history about the invention of space and time.