Ericka Beckman: Fair Game

A society ruled by structures and systems where performance is key, optimisation forms a constant preoccupation, and gamification is used as a means to drive up participation… All these properties defining our everyday lives today were first explored by Ericka Beckman in her work in the early 1980s, long before the introduction of social media and virtual reality. At M Leuven (Belgium), the American artist presents her multimedia installation Nanotech Players (1989), her first 16 mm film You The Better (1983), and her new film Reach Capacity (2020), shown in world premiere. The two films share the use of game as a structuring device, popular culture imagery, and a commentary on capitalism and real estate. 

Presented for the first time in Europe, the animated installation Nanotech Players shows how Beckman strips the materials and mediums she works with to their bare essentials. The five images are not animated in film; the static C-prints are turned into a sequence by programmed light and sound. The players themselves cannot be separated from the photographic medium, as their identity conveyed by their apparent motion is essentially the result of long exposure time and multiple lights. 

You The Better is at once Beckman’s first film containing an underlying societal critique and her first work shot in 16 mm. You The Better intertwines gambling activities, ball games and real estate. The house, a recurring motif echoed in the props animating with the film, does not only refer to the gambling establishment. It also alludes to real estate under capitalism, as demonstrated in the housing boom at the beginning of the film. Can the seemingly unstoppable advance of market forces ever be halted? This question prompted by You The Better at a time when President Reagan was championing free-market capitalism is ever so actual, and Beckman comes back to it in her new film, Reach Capacity (2020). 
 
Almost forty years after its first appearance in You The Better, the house returns as a character in Beckman’s new work Reach Capacity, now symbolising real estate. The economic and political elements and the structure of the film are closely associated with the most famous of all board games dealing with real estate, Monopoly. Its origins go back to the early 1900s, when Elizabeth Magie created a first version of what she called The Landlord’s Game. Magie’s game had two sets of rules, a Prosperity set and a Monopolist set (only the latter was kept by Parker Brothers when they further developed the game without her). Magie’s aim was to illustrate how society as a whole thrives when monopolies are banished and income is distributed equally. Beckman takes over Magie’s dual game structure by having her screen flip over when a monopoly is reached. 

Ericka Beckman lives and works in New York City and Boston. Recent solo shows include Ericka Beckman: Double Reverse at MIT List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2019) and Ericka Beckman. Game Mechanics at Secession (Vienna, 2017). Over her three-decade career, Beckman has participated in numerous group exhibitions, amongst which the 2009 show The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984 at The Met (New York). Her work can be found in many public and private collections, including The Met (New York), MoMA (New York) and Centre Pompidou (Paris). Her work is represented by Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles).

Curator: Valerie Verhack 

In partnership with Kestner Gesellschaft (Hannover) and with the support of Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles). 

Press: For more information, please contact Philippe Mertens, philippe.mertens@mleuven.be