Hubert Becker LA CODITION HUMAINE
22 Nov - 20 Dec 2008
LA CONDITION HUMAINE, 2008, 30 x 45 cm, C-Print
ERICH-FERL-STRASSE (nach Thomas Struth)
2000, 28,5 x 35 cm, Barytabzug
2000, 28,5 x 35 cm, Barytabzug
CHE II, 2006, 48 x 36cm, Barytabzug
MATTERHORN, 1998, 28 x 38 cm, Barytabzug
ROSENSTIEL, 2006, 70 x 85 cm, C-Print
SPRINGKRAUT (nach Karl Blossfeldt)
2004, 44 x 33,5 cm, Barytabzug
2004, 44 x 33,5 cm, Barytabzug
PICASSO/BRASSAI 5
2008, 21 x 16 cm, Barytabzug
2008, 21 x 16 cm, Barytabzug
SCHUHE, 2003, 18,5 x 24 cm, Barytabzug
STADTBILD, 2007, 70 x 85 cmC-Print
O.T. (Stachelau), 2002, 59 x 75 cm, Barytabzug
The momentary creation of space within pictures
»Hubert Becker’s pictures leave the feeling of reliability in the observer« writes Heinrich Miess about his works*, but none of Hubert Becker’s photographed motives show what they pretend to be: What looks like a drawing of shoes is actually a real pair of shoes, painted white and drawn over. The studio scene from Gerhard Richter is a built model after his own photograph, the Blossfeld only modelling clay.
Becker plays with our mistaken assumption that in times of mechanical reproduction, a depiction of a piece of art is showing as such. Thereby he works with the awareness that we are well situated in our process of visually recycling relevance and aesthetics. Becker reflects (and creates) art for himself by rebuilding a photo, of what seems to incidentally matter to him, as a model, taking a photo of it and finally destroying it. The results are photographs that equally move and irritate.
Becker’s source material is basically a depiction chosen from textual meaning, aesthetic quality and biographic chance: an image of his hometown Stachelau, a newspaper photo of the planet Eros, his own photographs or reproductions of art work. In sometimes long lasting processes his works develop in a mixture of precise handwork and formal haziness. By doing so they don’t deny their illusion.
His work CHE shows Guevara’s well known silhouette laid in black clothes on a white twin bed. Mirror-inverted to the »original«, the revolutionist is looking to you out of a middle-class bedroom.
With his strategy, Becker opens himself to a wide area of engagement, whose spectrum he has nowhere near declined yet.
With LA CONDITION HUMAINE, the title of a new piece as well as the exhibition, Becker is referring to a same-named painting of Réné Magritte from the year 1933. Like Magritte, Hubert Becker forces us to reconsider predetermined ideas of reality and to break through our habits of thinking.
With this exhibition, Galerie b2_ shows a synopsis of Hubert Becker’s work developed since 1992, including most recent pictures. It’s an exhibition which visualizes especially one thing: our consciousness is a construct.
Text: Michael Grzesiak
*DIE BILDFINDUNG IM NÄCHSTEN UMKREIS, Heinrich Miess, P. 49, in:
SHOT STORIES, Publ. Babette Richter, Richter-Brückner Verlag Köln, 2005
»Hubert Becker’s pictures leave the feeling of reliability in the observer« writes Heinrich Miess about his works*, but none of Hubert Becker’s photographed motives show what they pretend to be: What looks like a drawing of shoes is actually a real pair of shoes, painted white and drawn over. The studio scene from Gerhard Richter is a built model after his own photograph, the Blossfeld only modelling clay.
Becker plays with our mistaken assumption that in times of mechanical reproduction, a depiction of a piece of art is showing as such. Thereby he works with the awareness that we are well situated in our process of visually recycling relevance and aesthetics. Becker reflects (and creates) art for himself by rebuilding a photo, of what seems to incidentally matter to him, as a model, taking a photo of it and finally destroying it. The results are photographs that equally move and irritate.
Becker’s source material is basically a depiction chosen from textual meaning, aesthetic quality and biographic chance: an image of his hometown Stachelau, a newspaper photo of the planet Eros, his own photographs or reproductions of art work. In sometimes long lasting processes his works develop in a mixture of precise handwork and formal haziness. By doing so they don’t deny their illusion.
His work CHE shows Guevara’s well known silhouette laid in black clothes on a white twin bed. Mirror-inverted to the »original«, the revolutionist is looking to you out of a middle-class bedroom.
With his strategy, Becker opens himself to a wide area of engagement, whose spectrum he has nowhere near declined yet.
With LA CONDITION HUMAINE, the title of a new piece as well as the exhibition, Becker is referring to a same-named painting of Réné Magritte from the year 1933. Like Magritte, Hubert Becker forces us to reconsider predetermined ideas of reality and to break through our habits of thinking.
With this exhibition, Galerie b2_ shows a synopsis of Hubert Becker’s work developed since 1992, including most recent pictures. It’s an exhibition which visualizes especially one thing: our consciousness is a construct.
Text: Michael Grzesiak
*DIE BILDFINDUNG IM NÄCHSTEN UMKREIS, Heinrich Miess, P. 49, in:
SHOT STORIES, Publ. Babette Richter, Richter-Brückner Verlag Köln, 2005