UNTITLED PROJECT: MOUNTAIN/ROCK SHOP, Oil paint on carved wood, 2019 >> Untitled Project: Mountain/Rock Shop is an investigation of a particular place through objects and images — in particular, hand-carved and painted rocks based on real rocks collected in and around the Wood River Valley during the last two weeks of May 2019, and small landscape paintings of mountains based on specific real estate photographs of land for sale in the same geography. All of these things have been constructed as contemplative devices—specific things that are slowly seen and/or held in order to help one connect to a knowledge of another thing. All of these things have also been intentionally produced and positioned as curious commodities or strange souvenirs of a specific place.
What does it mean to interpret a place or value a landscape as a commodity? Unfortunately, over the past two centuries this particular Idahoan landscape has been repeatedly objectified, its value reduced to pelts, minerals, and mountain views––its capacity has become complicated. In the end, these hand-made sculptures of local rocks and intimate paintings of real estate mountains aspire to be oblique, desirable products that move awkwardly from inception to production to transaction to display—at once imitating the commodification of place but also providing a momentary pause for considering our location in a landscape that is always changing.
Untitled Project: Mountain/Rock Shop is part of the exhibition “Marketplaces: From Open Air to Online” curated by Courtney Gilbert at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Ketchum, Idaho and is on view from August 30 to November 8, 2019. All the carved/painted rocks are for sale, either ON-SITE for $125.00 or ONLINE at a price based on your distance, in walking hours, to Sun Valley, Idaho.