Jonas N.T. Becker

(American, b. 1982)

Jonas N. T. Becker is a multi-disciplinary artist who investigates the various social, cultural, and historical factors that form a collective understanding of place. His film End(s) of the World (2013) documents all the locations on Earth named, in some iteration or language, “The End of the World.” Covering points such as Valle del fin del mundo, in Argentina, to “End of the World Turn,” in rural West Virginia, Becker points to the human limitations—due to semantics, specific perspectives of early pioneers, or otherwise—inherent in our efforts to traverse and understand the immense global landscape.

Another series represented in MPP, Blank Topographies, considers why some areas of land are preserved as parks or valued as real estate property over others. Becker transforms the three-dimensional terrain maps of mountain ranges to unified white models of land masses, removing markers of names, roads, and identifiers of location to challenge perceptions of land-based economies in the pursuit of leisure.

Jonas N.T. Becker’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, CA (2015); the Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA (2015); the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2015); and LAXART, Los Angeles, CA (2010); among many others. He is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

https://www.beckerprojects.com/