About
Photo: Alice Stella
Carsten Becker, born 1973, is a visual artist investigating technical standards (DIN, RAL) and their societal significance. He is currently developing a series on GDR-specific standards (TGL). His research-based practice, often employing photography, interprets standards as reflections of German history, as seen in solo exhibitions like RAL (Berlin, 2018), Trauma through Time (Berlin, 2019), and Norm (Chemnitz, 2022).
After graduating from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (1999), where he received the German Thesis Award (1997, 1998), Becker founded an internet software company. Fully dedicating himself to his artistic practice since 2018, he has exhibited internationally, including the duo exhibition Continental Colors in Los Angeles (2022), shows in Athens (2018), Milan (2023), and an art fair in Copenhagen (2024). Recently, his work was supported by the Neustartplus grant from Stiftung Kunstfonds (2023) and featured in the group exhibition Gläsern at Schloss Biesdorf Berlin (2025). 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.