Julia Scher experiments with performance, video, installation and sculpture to interrogate psychic landscapes of surveillance. Appropriating feminine icons and domestic technologies, Scher crafts multi-media environments that probe the boundaries between exhibitionism, self-surveillance and violent state supervision.
Over the past three decades, Scher has dedicated herself to extensive research and teaching in the then-nascent but now firmly established field of Surveillance Studies. Scher’s interest in privacy and safety originates from a concern with gender politics, particularly the feminization of surveillance. Her unique vocabulary—the uniforms of her security guards, the “hidden” cameras, the whips and chains that intertwine with exposed coaxial cables—points to the psychosexual and the pleasure in being seen. Scher’s works question the fluctuating boundaries between the private and public spheres in a society built on social control. Her interactive installations place viewers in the dual position of watcher and watched. Scher’s focus on the manipulative and voyeuristic qualities of the cybersphere far preceded and anticipated the magnitude of contemporary surveillance society.
Julia Scher (b. 1954, Hollywood, California) lives and works in Cologne, Germany. Recent solo exhibitions of her work include American Landscape, Ortuzar Projects, New York (2024); Julia Scher: Maximum Security Society, Kunsthalle Zürich and Abteiberg Museum, Mönchengladbach, Germany (2022–2023); Wonderland, Maison Populaire, Montreuil, France (2022); Planet Greyhound, Kunsthalle Gießen, Gießen, Germany (2022); Julia Scher, MAMCO, Geneva (2021); and American Promises, Ortuzar Projects, New York (2019). Her work has been featured in institutional survey exhibitions including Day Jobs, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin and Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, California (2023–2024); Signals: How Video Transformed the World, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2023); Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2018); The Conditions of Being Art: Pat Hearn Gallery and American Fine Arts, Co. (1983–2004), Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (2018); and NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, New Museum, New York (2013). Scher has taught at institutions including Columbia University; Harvard University; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Southern California; and the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne. Her work is in the permanent collections of public institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Ludwig Museum, Cologne; MAMCO, Geneva; and Le Consortium, Dijon, among others.
