DORA MAURER

Since the 1970s, Dóra Maurer has been one of the dominant figures of Hungarian art. In addition to her creative work, she has been a major influence on her peers as an active and energetic organizer and, since 2003, a teacher. Her work faithfully reflects her perpetually curious, open-to-everything, constantly-searching personality, her irrepressible desire to experiment, fine intelligence and subtle irony. She works in several fields: in addition to paintings she has produced graphics, photographs, films, collages and installations. Works making use of geometry, colour theory and perception theories are actually playful experiments reflecting the attitude of the informed observer. 'Dóra Maurer is not interested in art, but in reality, and the constantly-changing manifestation of reality,' is what Dieter Honisch has written about her.The retrospective exhibition starts off with works displaying the influence of conceptual and geometrical composition, and then presents whole series of works, in a way intended to convey an unfolding art-form diversity and emergent seriality. The works on display give a clear view of the trends in Maurers work: the distortion and virtual spatial inversion of frontally-approached surfaces and the curving of the plane. The other aspect of the exhibition traces how the standard colours she once used have transformed, and come to life, culminating in the recent Overlapping group with its appeal to colour perception, and space is also devoted to her film and video works, made between 1973 and 1996.