LOS ANGELES — The Craft & Folk Art Museum presents Jonas Becker: The Pile, the museum debut of the Los Angeles-based artist’s most recent work. The Pile is a multimedia installation of video, photography, and handcrafted sculptures that explores desire—evoking questions such as where do our desires come from, how do they drive us, and ? The exhibition opens to the public on January 25 and is on view through May 3, 2015.

The Pile from the street, a mountain of hand-sewn, red felt objects pressing against the Museum’s windowpane. Inside the galleries, the pile towers

talismans from an endless bolt of material, piling them higher and higher around her.

Each object is the symbol of an actual desire voiced by one of the thousands of participants in Becker’s project. In parks, places of worship, classrooms, and online forums, he collected over a thousand answers to the question what one thing would make your life better? He then collaborated with his mother, the video’s protagonist, to handcraft a physical manifestation of each answer in red felt.

For CAFAM, he extended this collaboration to the public through open sewing meet-ups, doubling the scale of the pile from previous installations. The desires that appear in the pile run the gamut from the extremely material—“money” or a “car”— to the very intimate, such as “preventing my son’s suicide” or “keeping my family safe.”

Becker’s work draws upon artistic traditions in craft, social intervention, land art, video, and photography. Simultaneously, it employs tactics from popular culture, such as craft circles and crowdsourcing. Interweaving “high” and “low” culture and “real” and

endlessly manufactured.

Becker received his MFA from the University of California, Irvine, in 2010. His most recent solo exhibition, Zol Zayn//What If?, took place at Shulamit Gallery in 2014. His work has also been exhibited at LAXART, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles Art Mart, LA Road Project, 1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA, and Foundation for Art Resources, Long Beach, CA. He received a Six Points Fellowship in 2011, and he is the founder and

An opening reception for Jonas Becker: The Pile will take place on Saturday, January 24 from 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. The reception is free for CAFAM members and open to the public for a $12 admission fee. CAFAM members will be able to preview the exhibition on Saturday, January 24 starting at 12:00 p.m.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Sasha Ali | Exhibitions Managersasha@cafam.org | 323.937.4230 x25

JONAS BECKER: THE PILE January 25 – May 3, 2015Los Angeles artist Jonas Becker creates multimedia installation featuring a 13-foot tall mountain of wool felt talismans representing human desire

Killed Death, Ben Venom, Harley-Davidson t-shirts, fabric, 2013. Courtesy of the artist

[The American Context #14] Madame X, Luke Haynes, used clothing, new fabric, cotton,batting, thread, 2013. Courtesy of the artist

Falwell Quilt #2, Shawn Quinlan, handpainted fabric, commercial fabrics, 2007. Courtesy of the artist

Sponsored by the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation and the Y & S Nazarian Family Foundation.

This project is partially funded by the Six Points Fellowship, a program of the Foundation for Jewish Culture. The LA cohort was made possible through major funding from The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, and the Righteous Persons Foundation.

PUBLIC PROGRAMSCAFAM will offer exhibition-related workshops and events in conjunction with the exhibition, including CraftLab family workshops on the second Sunday of each month from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

Situated on historic Museum Row since 1973, the Craft & Folk Art Museum (CAFAM) is an invaluable contributor to Los Angeles culture, exhibiting current artists with intriguing perspectives and distinctive practices. Exploring the leading edge of craft, art, and design, CAFAM gives audience to diverse makers and artists whose work is often not represented in larger art institutions. The museum is a place to see art and make art — all under one roof. CAFAM coordinates a robust roster of hands-on workshops led by professional artists and makers. The intimate, atypical museum space and independent spirit at CAFAM combine to create an atmosphere of excitement and innovation, where people in Los Angeles deepen their relationships to art, creativity and one another. For more information, visit www.cafam.org Location: 5814 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036Admission: FREE every SundayRegularly: $7 for adults; $5 for students, teachers, seniors, and veterans; free for CAFAM membersHours: Tuesday-Friday, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday, 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.; closed Mondays. Every first Thursday of the month, extended hours 6:30 - 9:30 p.m.