Jonas N.T. Becker

Blank Topographies is a series of topographic relief maps that contain the most expensive mountain real estate in the year each work is created. The maps are purchased pre-formed from commercial websites where collectors trade them, in a hobbyist market that mirrors the luxury real estate market. The works, painted the color of the wall, camouflage the symbolic language of land based capital that would otherwise establish value; by removing the constructs of road, location names, and mostly class-based cultural association (Jackson Hole!!), the work depicts only the topography. The minimalist images draw a relationship between the commerce of art and land and the false neutrality of maps, questioning what is valued and why.