Dennis Maher worked part-time on a demolition crew to supplement his income as a UB clinical assistant professor of architecture.
Since first arriving in Buffalo in 2002, Maher tore down abandoned houses and structures. He decided to take pieces of his work home with him to create an unusual medium for his works of art.
From these experiences, Maher gained an appreciation for the art of architecture and the beauty of recycling demolished pieces of old mansions and buildings.
"I am interested in the space between unbuilding and rebuilding," Maher said. "I am fascinated by the idea that place is never static, never fixed, never complete."
Maher became captivated by the process of demolition and was surprised by the quantity of waste that comes from demolishing any structure. By using scraps from demolition sites, Maher began fusing debris into large-scale sculptures.
This fall, Maher became a part of the Beyond/In Western New York 2010: Alternating Currents exhibition in Buffalo. This past summer, Maher was an artist-in-residence at the Black and White Gallery/Project Space in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The Beyond/In exhibition is scattered over 25 different locations in the area and combines local artists and artists from regions beyond Buffalo in an exhibition that stands as a permanent part of the region's landscape and history.
Maher's work is currently on display at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, along with 10 other artists that have taken on a common sub-theme surrounding architecture that addresses the exhibition's theme of "Alternating Currents" in a conceptually unique way.
Due to the fact that the Burchfield Penney Art Center has an enormous amount of space with its 28-foot high ceilings, Maher was able to create an industrial-hued Goliath sculpture that is completely suspended in mid-air. It is called "Animate Lost/Found Matter (001-)."
"This is the largest installation I've yet realized and the first that is entirely?suspended," Maher said. "The more pristine yet unfinished cube at?the core might be seen as shedding the undone [or] redone skins, or, alternatively, as?consolidating the inertia of accumulated unfinishings."
This exhibit is a part of Maher's project "Undone-Redone City," which incorporates a mixture of sculpture with photographic collages that depict amalgamations of refuse in forms suggestive of new landscapes. This medium allows Maher to "draw and paint with debris" and to explore demolition, renovation and restoration through assembling the remains of obliterated places.
Hadas Steiner, an associate professor of architecture, explored Maher's work in an article entitled "The Demolition Artist."
"The impact of Maher's work resides in the fact that it registers the complexities of the politics of demolition, from the most intimate details up," Steiner wrote in the article. "Demolition after all has always been used to clear away old regimes or undesirables of every sort."
Maher focuses his attention on the city and surrounding areas of Buffalo. Recently, he has focused on "Buffalo ReUse," a deconstruction organization in Buffalo that is committed to reusing materials from demolished buildings in an economical and environmentally friendly way. These "dead" materials are then able to take on a new life in his art.
The Burchfield Penney Art Center is pleased to have Maher's work on display as it incorporates the aesthetics of its structure.
"This is the first time [we've had] something suspended," said Nancy Weekly, head of collections and the Charles Cary Ramsey curator at Burchfield Penney. "It's a different quality of work, floating in 3-D [and] can be read as a ship, space vehicle, something that is moving through the cosmos. [Maher] totally animates the space and was successful in working in a way that he never has."
Maher's work is currently on display at The Burchfield Penney Art Center at 1300 Elmwood Ave. and will be featured until Jan. 3.
For more information on the exhibition, visit http://www.beyondinwny.org or HYPERLINK "http://www.burchfieldpenney.org/"http://www.burchfieldpenney.org/. For more information on Maher and his work, visit HYPERLINK "http://www.assembledcityfragments.com/"http://www.assembledcityfragments.com/.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
