Julie Becker

Julie Becker (1972–2016) was an American artist, best known for her 1996 installation, Researchers, Residents, A Place to Rest. Her work addresses themes of temporariness, social mobility, and imagination as they apply to domestic and commercial spaces.

Becker spent the majority of her adult life living in Echo Park, and died by suicide in 2016 at the age of 43. In the 1990s, Los Angeles was growing rapidly, and class divisions became more extreme. Two further labels delineate the space and prepare visitors for the next rooms: “You Are Here,” and “Optional Entrance.” In some iterations of the show, visitors were welcome to flip through papers in the research room, and even take xerox copies with them. Other key reference points include The Gnome-Mobile (1967), Despair (1934), and the Eloise books. In Becker's work, fictional characters produce a quality of continuance, unburdened by time and inaccessible beyond the stretch of their media-visible lives.

Her aesthetic can be connected to the American Suburban Gothic of American Beauty (1999) and Twin Peaks (1990-91, 2017). Artists such as Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gregory Crewdson, Cindy Sherman, and Abigail Lane similarly interrogate the “contemporary gothic”. Los Angeles artists such as Diana Thater and Andrea Zittel also consider themes of domesticity and interior spaces, speaking to the experience of many Los Angeles residents who lived in poor conditions during the ‘90s.

Later life and death Becker spent most of her adult life living in an Echo Park bungalow, owned by the California Federal Bank located above it. She lived there cheaply with the agreement that she remove the belongings of a previous inhabitant, who died from AIDS related illness. The abandoned material life of the previous resident became a psychic catalyst for Becker’s Whole.

Although Becker’s work received early acclaim, she continued to live in poverty until her suicide in 2016, at the age of 43.

Remembrance I must create a Master Piece to pay the Rent was a retrospective exhibition at MoMA that ran between June 9th and September 2nd of 2019. The title of the exhibition was drawn from Becker’s 2015 drawing, watering.

Solo and two-person exhibitions

I must create a Master Piece to Pay the Rent, presented at MoMA PS1, New York (2019) and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2018) Greene Naftali, New York (2016) Seville Biennial, Seville (2006) Sightings, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2003) Greene Naftali, New York (2002) In Sync: Cinema and Sound in the work of Julie Becker and Christian Marclay, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2000) Julie Becker: Researchers, Residents, a Place to Rest, Kunsthalle Zurich (1997).