Carsten Becker – On the Biography of Things

Summary of the German text

The pack (das Rudel), 2023, by Berlin-based artist Carsten Becker was first shown in the exhibition Roundtrip – Fluidum #2 at Fabbrica Del Vapore, Milano/IT: a dense assemblage of bottles arranged in an acute triangle on the floor. In the flow of the arrangement, the bottle type and matte, monochrome coloring changes from dark green tones through brown to golden beige. Becker's work stands in the context of examining National Socialist crimes. The bottles stem from his research into the standardization of everyday objects, inseparably connected to military uses.

The colors are exact RAL military camouflage tones (e.g., RAL 7009 field gray from WWI, RAL 8000 used 1941–42 in North Africa to support Mussolini), still present in today’s norms and objects. Subtle tonal deviations integrate historical inaccuracies—pigment bans, wartime shortages—into the work’s precision. The installation subtly references Joseph Beuys’ 1969 piece of the same name without quotation, inverting its dynamics: rising self-referentially from a low point, it merges perpetrator and tool in anonymous threat, confronting German responsibility where postwar art often evaded it.