Andrea Robbins and Max Becher

Andrea Robbins (born 1963 in Boston, Massachusetts) and Max Becher (born 1964 in Düsseldorf) are U.S.-based visual artists. They have worked collaboratively since they met at the Cooper Union in New York in 1984. They married in 1988.

Education

Andrea Robbins received her BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art and then attended Hunter College School of Art, both in New York City. Max Becher received his BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art, and his MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.

Work

Robbins and Becher employ photography, video and other digital media to document what they term "the transportation of place," situations in which one place or culture strongly resembles another distant one. Their conception of place often includes such notions as location in time, positions of ideology and cultural identity. Past subjects of their work have included German colonial towns in Namibia, a neighborhood in Havana, Cuba that resembles Wall Street; Germans who dress as Native Americans; descendants of freed American slaves in the Dominican Republic; a Brooklyn Hasidic headquarters building that has been copied and rebuilt around the world; the relocated London Bridge in Lake Havasu, Arizona; the replication of Venice at The Venetian, Las Vegas; and the enduring culture of African American cowboys.

Exhibitions and reviews

The work of Robbins and Becher has been exhibited and collected by art museums such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,[1] (New York, NY and Bilbao, Spain), the Whitney Museum of American Art,[2] (New York, NY), the Jewish Museum[3] (New York, NY), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL.), the Museum of Contemporary Photography[4] (Chicago, IL), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (Barcelona, Spain),[5]Maison européenne de la photographie (Paris, France), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum Kunstpalast[6] (Düsseldorf, Germany), and the SK Stiftung Kultur (Cologne, Germany). Their work has been reviewed or featured in publications such as Artforum,[7] Art in America, Art News, Blindspot Magazine,[8] October, Art on Paper, The New York Times,[9] The Washington Post,[10] Frankfurter Allgemeine,[11] Die Zeit, Welt am Sonntag, and many others.

Books
  • "Portraits,"[12] with essays by Maurice Berger, and Andrea Robbins and Max Becher, 2008, Publisher, University of Maryland Baltimore County, MA. ISBN 978-1-890761-11-0
  • "The Transportation of Place,"[13] with essays by Lucy Lippard and Maurice Berger, 2006. Publisher: Aperture Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-59711-010-5
  • "Brooklyn Abroad." with essays by Nora Alter and Rupert Pfab, May 2006. Publisher Sonnabend Gallery and Museum Kunstpalast.
  • "Contact sheet 98: Andrea Robbins and Max Becher: German Indians and Bavarian by Law,"[14] with essays by Gary Hesse and Jolene Rickard, 1998. Publisher: Light Work, Syracuse, NY. ISSN 1064-640X
  • "Andrea Robbins and Max Becher,"[15] with essays by Benjamin Buchloh, Catherine de Zegher, Everlyn Nicodemus, and Luc Lang, 1994. Publisher: Kanaal Art Foundation, Kortrijk and de Vleeshal, Middleburg, The Netherlands ASIN: B001QC688Y

Residencies and awards
  • Artist-in-Residence, The Altos de Chavón Cultural Center Foundation, La Romana, Dominican Republic (affiliated with Parsons School of Design, New York) summer 1999
  • Grant Recipient Artists-in-Residence, Light Work Foundation,[16] winter 1995
  • Leopold Godowsky, Jr. Color Photography Award,[17] 2005
  • Cooper Union President's Citation for Art,[18] 2011

References
  1. The New York Times "The Guggenheim Sounds the Alarm: It Ain't Necessarily So" Accessed July 10, 2011
  2. The Whitney Museum."The American Effect" Accessed July 9, 2011
  3. The Jewish Museum, New York. The Jewish Identity Project: New American Photography" Archived 2011-10-01 at the Wayback Machine Accessed July 11, 2011
  4. Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago."Andrea Robbins & Max Becher: The Transportation of Place" Archived September 10, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Accessed July 9, 2011
  5. Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, List of artists from the MACBA collection
  6. galerienvirtuell.de, "Künstlerpaar Andrea Robbins und Max Becher in Köln und Düsseldorf" Archived March 26, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Accessed July 10, 2011
  7. Artforum,"Andrea Robbins & Max Becher - art exhibit at the Basilico Fine Arts, New York" Accessed July 4, 2011
  8. Blind Spot Magazine Issue 6."Andrea Robbins & Max Becher:The Oregon Vortex" Archived 2011-10-01 at the Wayback Machine Accessed July 10, 2011
  9. New York Times."ART IN REVIEW; Andrea Robbins and Max Becher Accessed July 4, 2011.
  10. The Washington Post."Illustrating That Looks Aren't Everything" Accessed July 5, 2011
  11. Frankurter Allgemeine."Einmal Indianerhäuptling sein." Catrin Lorch, 2005
  12. University of Maryland Baltimore County, "Portraits" Accessed July 4, 2011.
  13. Aperture Press, "The Transportation of Place" Archived September 29, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Accessed July 4, 2011.
  14. Light Work, "Contact sheet 98: Andrea Robbins and Max Becher: German Indians and Bavarian by Law" Archived March 23, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Accessed July 9, 2011
  15. Kanaal Art Foundation and de Vleeshal, "Andrea Robbins and Max Becher" Archived October 9, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Accessed July 10, 2011
  16. Light Work Foundation, "Light Work Chronology" Archived July 21, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Accessed July 10, 2011
  17. Photographic Resource Center at Boston University "Godowsky Award Archived July 21, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Accessed July 10, 2011
  18. Cooper Union President's Citation for Ar, "PRESIDENT'S CITATION: ART" Archived November 21, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Accessed July 9, 2011
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