WERTSTOFF

WERTSTOFF is a key work within BECKER’s material philosophy "THE HONEST SURFACE vs. MONO NO TAMASHII". It asks a simple yet radical question:

What remains when everything decorative is removed? What is value truly made of?

 

Cardboard and toilet paper are among the most disposable materials of everyday life. Temporary. Functional. Meant to disappear. The cardboard carries marks of pressure, folding, compression — a technical history embedded in its surface. The toilet paper brings an ornamental pattern that oscillates between intimacy and repetition.

 

BECKER does not use these materials as passive carriers. The surface is already narrative before any intervention occurs. There is no classical canvas here. The material itself is the statement.

 

Copper lacquer does not refine — it activates. Copper is not a luxury metal. It is a conductor. It transmits warmth, electricity, impulse. It stands for connection. Through this layer, the work becomes a resonant body between opposites:

between cheap and valuable,

between fragile and structural,

between disposable and lasting,

between object and emotion.

 

Beneath the copper, the cardboard appears like a technical fossil — almost a forgotten machine from a future past. The toilet paper transforms into skin, into geological relief.

 

WERTSTOFF is not about material. It is about attribution. Value does not live inside matter. It lives inside perception.

 

The work refuses the hierarchy of precious and trivial. Perhaps a “Wertstoff” is simply what refuses to remain worthless.

 

WERTSTOFF is part of the upcoming exhibition BETROGENER TRAUM and belongs to AREA 03 — Construction.

Photography © Alex Wendler