About
Photo: Alice Stella
Carsten Becker (b. 1973) is a visual artist and investigates technical standards such as DIN, RAL, and the GDR-specific TGL as a structural part of German history and a trace of hidden continuities between political systems. This is visible for instance in the olive green of the Wehrmacht (RAL 6003) and the East German NVA (TGL 2425).
In the ongoing series TGL, he reconstructs the industrial color standards of the former GDR based on a 1977 register from the estate of designer Lutz Rudolph. It continues his archival work on the RAL series, for which he restored lost color tones from historical color samples. Through re-lacquering, photographic composition, and juxtaposition, he removes standardized objects from their functional context and exposes their historical layering.
After graduating from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (1999), Becker founded an internet software company. He has been fully dedicated to his artistic practice since 2018. Recent exhibitions include Judgment and Calculation (Frontviews, Berlin, 2026) and Gläsern (Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin, 2025). Earlier shows include the solo exhibition Norm (Chemnitz, 2022) and the two-person exhibition Continental Colors (Los Angeles, 2022). In 2023, his work was supported by the Neustart Plus grant of Stiftung Kunstfonds. He lives and works in Berlin.
Statement
My work begins with curiosity about a shape or color that is unknown to me. The starting point can be an observation, which then leads to research. The artistic material results from this research.
RAL colors, for example, are not a color system but rather a color collection for German authorities. This discovery triggered a years-long research: I reconstructed colors that once existed but were removed after 1945 – colors I had never seen, but my grandparents had during the Second World War. I understand such standards as fossils of German history.
This is how works are created that are based on a system I did not invent. Forms and colors that come from the past and remain mysterious to me. So I always remain a curious observer of my own work.