JOCELYN MILLER

The first museum survey exhibition devoted to the work of Julie Becker (American, 1972–2016). Inspired by the psychological, cinematic, and physical geographies of her hometown of Los Angeles, Becker produced a rarely-seen body of installations, sculptures, drawings, photographs, and videos. Embellishing or skewering the idylls of the 20th-century American dream, Becker articulates the fantasies, nightmares, and dispossessions underpinning the social imaginary of late capitalism, with special emphasis on the loneliness and estrangement that results from social inequity. Drawing from sources as diverse as Stephen King’s The Shining, Kay Thompson’s children’s book Eloise, and Disney’s The Gnome-Mobile, Becker also found inspiration in suburban stoner lore about the karmic convergences between MGM’s 1939 musical fantasy The Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon.The artist’s chosen cultural references collide with an idiosyncratic, and at times dark aura of childish wonder and projection, rendering interior space as psychically charged and provisional, conjuring sites that function both as refuge and fantastical escape.

First presented at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London in 2018, curated there by Richard Birkett, the exhibition features an expanded presentation of Becker’s work, including the artist’s formative installation Researchers, Residents, A Place to Rest (1993-1996) along with more than 60 photographs, works on paper, video installations, and sculptures.