Ideal City

January 20 – February 26, 2011 / Neo-Nomads: What Travels With You / BRIC Contemporary Art / Brooklyn, NY

February 15 – May 18, 2008 / Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes /
Walker Art Center / Minneapolis, MN

October 4, 2008 – January 18, 2009 / Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes / Carnegie Museum of Art / Pittsburgh, PA

March 2 – May 10, 2009 / Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes / Yale Architecture Gallery / New Haven, CT

April 2–May 15, 2005 / Fifteen Paces /
Smack Mellon / Brooklyn, NY

September, 2004 / Ideal City /
Plane Space / New York, NY

Graphite and cut-outs on paper, corrugated cardboard

In these drawings, self-storage units are rendered from multiple perspectives. As this utilitarian building is contemplated, Beck draws and redraws, cuts and layers these typically bland structures until they become overwhelming and dizzying. This technique recalls America’s own patterns of over-accumulation and consumption, until human excesses must be transferred to a no man’s land of overabundance, contained in tiny uniform structures that are slowly but persistently taking over the American landscape.