Edition #5

What is the role of (artistic) photography today? Can and does it still influence us in the way we view and perceive the world?

Carsten Becker’ photographic works tend to question, how does history affect the present? His series are often developed from historic material and reflect upon the importance of generating an understanding of how public opinions and perceptions of events are shaped and formed. In thus he addresses the influence of images within the mass media, as he pays attention to the potential for distorting and shaping expressions of reality by ways of manipulation. With photo-artistic means Becker not only opens up a new space for interpretation, but he also questions the demands and expectations of the depicting medium, this can be witnessed in his new series of iconographically charged compositions of seemingly familiar objects. After an initial examination of the unusual and mysterious-looking composition of functional everyday objects, the questioning of the interpretation and meaning of the sculpturally staged objects with their unusual and strikingly pale colours follows. Carsten Becker's sober variants of still life motifs are reduced developing a speculative narrative over the dull surface of the familiar objects, its materiality, affiliations and the artistic medium itself. His combinations of DIN standards with RAL colours become thinking tasks. They are not reminiscent of the history of standardisation, industrial and product design, but rather refer to contemporary historical and socio-political contexts. As a limited edition Carsten Becker has created Vichyform mit Kugelknopf, 2020, for the current edition exhibition #5 in Frontviews at HAUNT.

Carsten Becker studied at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (1994-99). The conceptual artist is a two-time winner of the Deutscher Studienpreis (Körber Foundation). His works have been shown internationally at the Architekturzentrum Wien, Kunstquartier Bethanien Berlin, Palazzo delle Stelline Milano, Athens and Paradiso Amsterdam. Carsten Becker lives and works in Berlin. https://carstenbecker.net