Just got my print copy of my article, Shooting Sinkholes, I contributed to @friezeofficial magazine. The essay features my recent photographic series Better or Equal Use and considers issues of extraction & environmental injustice. I’m honored to be highlighted as a defining voice on the American South, and excited to bring increased visibility to aesthetic practices and issues in the Appalachian region.
Better or Equal Use is a series of photographs that use coal dust to depict redevelopment projects on former mountaintop removal mining sites in Appalachia. Rendered using coal mined from each site, the images highlight the interrelated histories of extraction and oppression in the region.
It’s the last day to see “Jonas N.T. Becker: A Hole is not a Void” and our summer exhibitions.
Artist Jonas N.T. Becker reflects on some of the themes found in their exhibition.
“Jonas N.T. Becker: A Hole is not a Void” is the artist’s largest museum exhibition to date, on view June 1 through August 21, 2024.
#TheWex #ContemporaryArt #JonasNTBecker
Opening tonight @rhizome_dc ! Come see@my work@in this excellent exhibition alongside these other amazing artists: Lacy Hale, Jared Hamilton, Jordan Martinez-Mazurek, Comrade Pitt Panther, Tiffany
Pyette, Kat Smith, Sylvia Ryerson
Curated by Gabrielle Christiansen
Meet our 2026 Chicago Artadia Awards Finalist!
Jonas Becker’s work examines land, labor, and extraction, often reflecting underrepresented rural issues. His research-based practice excavates layers of marginalized histories, drawing attention to the ways systems of power place value on bodies and the landscape. Becker works across mediums, including photography, film, sculpture, and performance. Increasingly, he has centered this work in the Appalachian region, where he is from.
Jonas N.T. Becker (b. Morgantown, WV) has exhibited internationally, recently including a survey exhibition at The Wexner Center for Contemporary Art, and exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, FotoFocus Biennial, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the Driehaus Museum. His work is published in Frieze, The Brooklyn Rail, and MIT Press/New Museum’s anthology Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility. Recent awards include the Magnum Foundation Counter Histories Award, Lucas Artist Residency at Montalvo Art Center, and Wexner Artist Residency Award. Becker lives and works in West Virginia and Chicago, where he is an Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Headshot photo by Marzena Abrahamik.
Thank @sibcita for highlighting my work in your curators picks! A high compliment from one of Chicago’s finest. Great to be in good company @minia_biabiany and @suneil_sanzgiri
We invite the public to join us tomorrow Friday, September 5 for extended viewing of the Faculty Sabbatical Triennial Exhibition from 5-7pm with key remarks and artists on view, such as Jonas N.T. Becker, who makes photographs, videos, and performances that explore how systems of power place value on the body and the resource-rich landscape. His practice is research based, excavating layers of mainstream and marginalized histories, particularly in rural America. Each of Becker’s projects focuses on a specific landscape, drawing attention to interrelated histories and human impact. During his sabbatical, Becker created Class Struggle.
Class Struggle is a film project that explores the transmission of politics across generations. Becker’s ongoing project unfolds in chapters with different topics, characters, and filming strategies. In Chapter 2, Becker and their mother play the 1978 board game Class Struggle, a socialist version of Monopoly, while discussing cross-generational political issues. As the two play, Becker poses questions about climate change, unions, and military spending, opening a weighty discussion about generational politics.
In Chapter 4 of Class Struggle, Becker’s mother discusses the impact of her involvement in the political movements of the 1960s and 70s. Her words overlay footage of Becker’s child playing with metaphor-laden toys and Becker and their grandmother trying on various political T-shirts. Class Struggle seeks to understand how political views are handed down and its impact on both parents and children.
Class Struggle: Chapter 2, 2024. HD videos with sound. 18:15 mins.
Class Struggle: Chapter 4, 2024. HD videos with sound. 14:30 mins.
Faculty Sabbatical Triennial Exhibition
August 25–December 6
Street Level & Lower Level 2
SAIC Galleries is located at 33 E Washington St, Chicago, IL.
Open Monday through Saturday 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
SAIC Galleries will be closed November 24–29, for Thanksgiving break.
#FacultySabbatical #ChicagoArts #SAICShows
Jonas N.T. Becker @jonasntbecker is an interdisciplinary, research-based artist whose work explores how systems of power place value on the body and the resource-rich landscape.
In “1810, 1833, 1880,” Becker juxtaposes the natural resources of timbered walnut and coal, evoking the millions of years of geological processes that turn timber into the combustible fuel of industrialization. Around the dining room, carved coal sculptures and wood pieces are placed where one might traditionally find glass and silver dinnerware. This brings “in the question of what materials are valued or what materials are sort of taken advantage of and made invisible.”
Visit the Driehaus Museum now to see ‘A Tale of Today: Materialities’ in person. Don’t forget to download the Bloomberg Connects app @bloombergconnects to hear Jonas N.T. Becker and the other ‘Materialities’ artists discuss their work, with an introduction from guest curator Dr. Giovanni Aloi @dr.aloi .
Photos by Robert Heishman & Robert Salazar of Bob. @bob.mov
#driehausmuseum #atotmaterialities #materialities #ataleoftoday #contemporaryart #chicagomuseum
My installation opens this Friday at the Driehaus Museum as part of Materialities! Situated inside the Gilded Age mansion, my installation addresses the site’s connections to resource extraction, as well as highlighting invisible labor. The instillation includes sound, cut wood, coal and vernacular coal carvings.
Materialities invites living artists to select a material from the Museum, research its history, and produce site-specific installations designed to uncover hidden cultural, historical, and ecological networks, connecting the fabric of the Nickerson Mansion to distant shores, traditions, and ideologies. This exhibition is organized by the Driehaus Museum and guest curated by Dr. Giovanni Aloi.
Friday, February 7 5:30-8:00 PM Driehaus Museum 50 East Erie
5:30PM Doors Open and Exhibition Viewing Nickerson Mansion
6:15PM Program, Murphy Auditorium Guest curator Giovanni Aloi in conversation with Executive Director Lisa M. Key.
7:00PM Reception and Viewing
Guest curated by Dr. Giovanni Aloi, organized by the Driehaus Museum, this dynamic, three-floor exhibition includes works from artists Rebecca Beachy, Jonas Becker, Olivia Block, Barbara Cooper, Richard Hunt, IOTO, Beth Lipman, Luftwerk, Dakota Mace, Bobbie Meier, Laleh Motlagh, Ebony G. Patterson, Jefferson Pinder, and Edra Soto, working across a variety of disciplines.
Read the full text @friezeofficial article in print or online, link in bio. Excited to write about the connections between materiality in artists’ practice and extraction, and share my project Better or Equal Use with Frieze’s audience.
Thank you to the wonderful Marko Gluhaich, editor extraordnaire and thought partner and to @juliadebski for making it happen.
A great experience writing for Frieze about my work and the evermore urgent issues of extraction, environmental injustice and their relationship to aesthetics and artist practices. Honored to be among the voices framing Frieze’s spotlight on the American South as geographical place and cultural site. Please check out the other great features: @andreaanderssonrivers@jda.usa@loistaylorbiggs@casseloliver@brynevans_@visionsandverbs@k_w_tucker
