Background
Julia Scher was born on March 9, 1954, in Los Angeles, California, United States. She is a daughter of a traveling salesman and a department store employee. Julia was raised in Van Nuys, San Fernando Valley.
1989
Julia Scher with her installation "Security by Julia II", 1989.
University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States
In 1975, Scher received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles.
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, United States
In 1984, Julia got a Master of Fine Arts degree in Studio Arts from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
Julia Scher was born on March 9, 1954, in Los Angeles, California, United States. She is a daughter of a traveling salesman and a department store employee. Julia was raised in Van Nuys, San Fernando Valley.
In 1975, Scher received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles. Later, she continued her education at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Studio Arts in 1984.
In 1987, Julia created her first video art work about women in security, called "Safe & Secure in Minnesota". At the time, when she worked in the studio, located in Venice Beach, her works were influenced by so-called "light and space" artists, such as Larry Bell, Chris Burden, Robert Graham and Lynda Benglis.
Also, at the beginning of her career, Scher did several additional jobs in order to earn a living. Later, she founded her own company, entitled "Safe and Secure Productions", where she installed security and surveillance equipment. Since that time, Julia has been using security cameras for her artwork. Since 1988, Scher has been creating a series of installations, entitled "Security by Julia". These have taken different forms, but often involve a person, wearing a security uniform and an invitation to the viewer to actively participate in surveillance culture. Other variations of the installations have included soothing voices and baby blankets.
During the 1990's, Scher divided her time between New York and Boston. In 1996, she began to teach Surveillance Studies class at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Later, she attained a fellowship at Harvard University/Radcliffe Bunting Institute for the field Surveillance Studies in 1996-1997 and later, between 1997-2001 and 2005-2006, Julia taught the Visual Arts Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 2006, Scher has been holding a post of a professor of Multimedia and Performance/Surveillant Architectures at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.
During her lifetime, she also taught at other educational establishments, including Hartford University Art School; Cooper Union; University of California, Los Angeles; Harvard University; Columbia University and others.
Also, Julia took part in numerous group exhibitions, held at different places, including The Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (1986), "Cocido y Crudo" (curated by Dan Cameron), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (1994), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (1995), Tate Modern, London (2010), "Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera Since 1870", San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (2011), "Film as Place", San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (2016), "Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to today", University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor (2018).
Her selected solo exhibitions include "Julia Scher: Public Travel Area (P.T.A.)", MoMA PS1, New York City (1988), "Occupational Placement (O.P.)", Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (1989), "Buffalo Under Surveillance", Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo (1992), "Don't Worry", Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (1994), "Information America", Maurine and Robert Rothschild Gallery, Harvard University, Cambridge (1996), "Forecast", Maurine and Robert Rothschild Gallery, Harvard University, Cambridge (1997), "Predictive Engineering (Audio)", European Kunsthalle, Cologne (2009), "Julia Scher – Delta", Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, Germany (2018) and others.
Currently, Julia lives and works in Cologne.
Julia produces theatrical installations, satirizing a society, in which electronic monitoring has become an increasingly familiar, paranoia-inducing experience. Her work presciently addresses surveillance both as a concrete phenomenon of control, including its apparatus and architecture, as well as its impact on private and public sphere.