As a painter, Paul Becker has exhibited widely, in the UK and internationally with solo exhibitions at M_HKA Antwerp
in 2017, Le Salon, Brussels in 2013 and Chapter Gallery, Cardiff in 2005. In terms of his writing, he has worked with
a variety of curatorial initiatives such as FormContent and Auto Italia in London, CIRCA Projects, Foundation Press
and the Northern Charter in Newcastle and MAUVE in Vienna. In 2017, alongside Juan de la Cosa in Mexico City,
Becker published Choreography / Coreografia, a fiction set within RW Fassbinder’s Chinese Roulette (1976).
Becker has also collaborated with many individual artists, curators, musicians and writers on exhibitions, texts,
recordings, films and publications and for several years he has been compiling The Kink in the Arc, a collective novel
based on descriptions off artworks by nearly 100 artists. Recent commissions include a text for Laure Prouvost for her book Legsicon,
published in collaboration with Bookworks, UK and M_HKA, Antwerp, and a fiction based inside a Marguerite
Duras film for diSONARE. In summer, 2022 his latest book 'How We Made 'The Kick Inside'' is being produced by JOAN publishing.
Becker was recently awarded a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
He was the 2020 Abbey Fellow in Painting at the British School at Rome.
ENQUIRIES: paulbecker49@gmail.com
LINKS: thekinkinthearc.net
EDUCATION
1997/99 Slade School of Fine Art, Master of Fine Art (Painting)
1986/89 Kingston Polytechnic, BA Fine Art (Painting)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2017 The Lodgers, M_HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium
2015 Paul Becker: New Paintings, Drop City, Newcastle
2013 The Cat, Carpeted, Le Salon, Brussels, curated by FormContent
EXHIBITIONS/PUBLICATIONS ETC.
2022 Moderato Cantabile, with Merlin James, Louise Hopkins etc. Stoppenbach & Delestre, London
The Ventriloquists, with Alan Stanners, Gallery Celine, Glasgow
2021 A Table Made Again For The First Time: On Kate Briggs' 'This Little Art'
Paul Becker, Kate Briggs, Daniela Cascella, Sophie Collins, Renee Gladman,
Nadia Hebson, Rubén Martín Giráldez, Arno Renken, Alejandro Zambra
Intertitles an anthology of work situated at the intersection of writing and the visual arts.
Published by Prototype Publishing and edited by Jess Chandler, Aimee Selby, Hana Noorali & Lynton Talbot
2020 Towner International Biennial
(selected by Mike Nelson, Polly Staple & Noelle Collins)
(with Luke McCreadie & War Dr.) Podcast on rtm.fm
2018 Legsicon for Laure Prouvost
(with John Latham, Elizabeth Price, Natasha Soobramanien,
Agnès Varda, Emily Wardill, Marina Warner & Lawrence Weiner)
Published by Bookworks, London & M_HKA, Antwerp, Belgium
The Kink in the Arc
Online publication & performed collective novel, M_HKA, Antwerp, Belgium
Choreography/Coreografia
Juan de la Cosa, Mexico
2016 The Mean of Men
Resonance FM (with Adam Phillips)
2015 The Decorator & the Thief
Curated by George Vasey NGCA
2014 Continue Without Losing Consciousness
Curated by Tony Swain, Rob Churm & Raydale Dower. DCA Dundee
Cadavere Quotidiano
(Co-editor with Alex Cecchetti & Francesco Pedraglio) featuring:
Tim Etchells, Ed Atkins, Katrina Palmer, Joanne Tatham, Fiona Jardine, Melissa Gordon, Becky Beasley etc.
Published by X-TRA, Los Angeles
My Life by Anton Lesseman
Henry Moore Institute, Essays on Sculpture No. 68.
Edited by Lisa Le Feuvre
It's Moving From I to It
Published by FormContent, London
TARR: Fiction by Artists
Baltic, Newcastle. (with Simon Bill, Jennifer Higgie & Tom Morton)
The Nabokov Paper
Published by Information as Material. Edited by Kate Briggs
RESIDENCIES/FELLOWSHIPS/SCHOLARSHIPS
2020 Abbey Fellowship in Painting, The British School at Rome
2017 M_HKA, Antwerp, Belgium
2015 Hospitalfield Summer Residency, Arbroath Scotland
2014 AIR Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium
2013 Writer in Residence, Experimentica Live Arts Festival, Chapter, Cardiff
2011 Henry Moore Institute Research Fellowship
2011 PEN Writers Residency, Antwerp
CURATING
2017 We Were Having An Argument About Kenneth Koch's 'One Train May Hide Another'
Kingsgate Project Space, London (with Mark Bleakley, Toby Christian, Rose O’Gallivan & Milly Thompson)
Curated by Paul Becker, George Vasey & Nadia Hebson
Choreography, ARCADE London (with Daniela Cascella, Chris Fite-Wassilak,
Nadia Hebson, Jennifer Hodgson, Ghislaine Leung, Sophie Macpherson,
Francesco Pedraglio, Natasha Soobramanien & Eleanor Wright)
2012 Apropos The Kissing of a Hand, Newcastle (with Becky Beasley,
Catrin Huber, Sophie Macpherson, Jeremy Millar, Roman Signer, Billy Childish etc.)
AWARDS
2020 Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant
2017 Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts (Visual Arts)
COLLECTIONS
Henry Moore Archive of Sculptor’s Papers, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK
The Collection of Dame Paula Rego R.A.
The Collection of Tess Jaray R.A.
As a painter, Paul Becker has exhibited widely, in the UK and internationally with solo exhibitions at M_HKA Antwerp
in 2017, Le Salon, Brussels in 2013 and Chapter Gallery, Cardiff in 2005. In terms of his writing, he has worked with
a variety of curatorial initiatives such as FormContent and Auto Italia in London, CIRCA Projects, Foundation Press
and the Northern Charter in Newcastle and MAUVE in Vienna. In 2017, alongside Juan de la Cosa in Mexico City,
Becker published Choreography / Coreografia, a fiction set within RW Fassbinder’s Chinese Roulette (1976).
Becker has also collaborated with many individual artists, curators, musicians and writers on exhibitions, texts,
recordings, films and publications and for several years he has been compiling The Kink in the Arc, a collective novel
based on descriptions off artworks by nearly 100 artists. Recent commissions include a text for Laure Prouvost for her book Legsicon,
published in collaboration with Bookworks, UK and M_HKA, Antwerp, and a fiction based inside a Marguerite
Duras film for diSONARE. In summer, 2022 his latest book 'How We Made 'The Kick Inside'' is being produced by JOAN publishing.
Becker was recently awarded a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
He was the 2020 Abbey Fellow in Painting at the British School at Rome.
ENQUIRIES: paulbecker49@gmail.com
LINKS: thekinkinthearc.net
EDUCATION
1997/99 Slade School of Fine Art, Master of Fine Art (Painting)
1986/89 Kingston Polytechnic, BA Fine Art (Painting)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2017 The Lodgers, M_HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium
2015 Paul Becker: New Paintings, Drop City, Newcastle
2013 The Cat, Carpeted, Le Salon, Brussels, curated by FormContent
EXHIBITIONS/PUBLICATIONS ETC.
2022 Moderato Cantabile, with Merlin James, Louise Hopkins etc. Stoppenbach & Delestre, London
The Ventriloquists, with Alan Stanners, Gallery Celine, Glasgow
2021 A Table Made Again For The First Time: On Kate Briggs' 'This Little Art'
Paul Becker, Kate Briggs, Daniela Cascella, Sophie Collins, Renee Gladman,
Nadia Hebson, Rubén Martín Giráldez, Arno Renken, Alejandro Zambra
Intertitles an anthology of work situated at the intersection of writing and the visual arts.
Published by Prototype Publishing and edited by Jess Chandler, Aimee Selby, Hana Noorali & Lynton Talbot
2020 Towner International Biennial
(selected by Mike Nelson, Polly Staple & Noelle Collins)
(with Luke McCreadie & War Dr.) Podcast on rtm.fm
2018 Legsicon for Laure Prouvost
(with John Latham, Elizabeth Price, Natasha Soobramanien,
Agnès Varda, Emily Wardill, Marina Warner & Lawrence Weiner)
Published by Bookworks, London & M_HKA, Antwerp, Belgium
The Kink in the Arc
Online publication & performed collective novel, M_HKA, Antwerp, Belgium
Choreography/Coreografia
Juan de la Cosa, Mexico
2016 The Mean of Men
Resonance FM (with Adam Phillips)
2015 The Decorator & the Thief
Curated by George Vasey NGCA
2014 Continue Without Losing Consciousness
Curated by Tony Swain, Rob Churm & Raydale Dower. DCA Dundee
Cadavere Quotidiano
(Co-editor with Alex Cecchetti & Francesco Pedraglio) featuring:
Tim Etchells, Ed Atkins, Katrina Palmer, Joanne Tatham, Fiona Jardine, Melissa Gordon, Becky Beasley etc.
Published by X-TRA, Los Angeles
My Life by Anton Lesseman
Henry Moore Institute, Essays on Sculpture No. 68.
Edited by Lisa Le Feuvre
It's Moving From I to It
Published by FormContent, London
TARR: Fiction by Artists
Baltic, Newcastle. (with Simon Bill, Jennifer Higgie & Tom Morton)
The Nabokov Paper
Published by Information as Material. Edited by Kate Briggs
RESIDENCIES/FELLOWSHIPS/SCHOLARSHIPS
2020 Abbey Fellowship in Painting, The British School at Rome
2017 M_HKA, Antwerp, Belgium
2015 Hospitalfield Summer Residency, Arbroath Scotland
2014 AIR Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium
2013 Writer in Residence, Experimentica Live Arts Festival, Chapter, Cardiff
2011 Henry Moore Institute Research Fellowship
2011 PEN Writers Residency, Antwerp
CURATING
2017 We Were Having An Argument About Kenneth Koch's 'One Train May Hide Another'
Kingsgate Project Space, London (with Mark Bleakley, Toby Christian, Rose O’Gallivan & Milly Thompson)
Curated by Paul Becker, George Vasey & Nadia Hebson
Choreography, ARCADE London (with Daniela Cascella, Chris Fite-Wassilak,
Nadia Hebson, Jennifer Hodgson, Ghislaine Leung, Sophie Macpherson,
Francesco Pedraglio, Natasha Soobramanien & Eleanor Wright)
2012 Apropos The Kissing of a Hand, Newcastle (with Becky Beasley,
Catrin Huber, Sophie Macpherson, Jeremy Millar, Roman Signer, Billy Childish etc.)
AWARDS
2020 Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant
2017 Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts (Visual Arts)
COLLECTIONS
Henry Moore Archive of Sculptor’s Papers, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK
The Collection of Dame Paula Rego R.A.
The Collection of Tess Jaray R.A.