Brandon Lattu

"In any case, inside and outside, as experienced by the imagination, can no longer be taken in their simple reciprocity; consequently, by omitting geometrical references when we speak of the first expressions of being, by choosing more concrete, more phenomenologically exact inceptions, we shall come to realize that the dialectics of inside and outside multiply with countless diversified nuances."

- Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

For his first solo exhibition with the gallery, Brandon Lattu presents new photographic and sculptural works that explore various concrete entities that demonstrate expansion, proliferation and flow. Potatoes, pebbles, candies, tumors, words, geometric forms and a museum are all presented in various kinds of display one might assume to explain their basic qualities: slicing, transparency, or reflection from different viewpoints. However, these approaches don’t explain the subjects so much as make their symbolic registers shift and change while providing the viewer with an opportunity to scrutinize the implications of the strategies of display.

In the front space of the main gallery, The Curse of Roko's Basilisk, a conventional black and white photograph of a figure trapped in a four-way virtual reflective snare makes the identification of what might be the original entity indeterminable, alluding to the dilemma of identification in internet space. Throughout Full to Bursting, spatial boundaries are penetrated and temporal limitations are revealed. In the main gallery, Potatoes and Pebbles with Truffle Tumors (an Allegory), a photograph the dimensions of an abstract expressionist canvas, (specifically, Lavender Mist, a Pollock painting that has had a lasting impact on Lattu) depicts floating potatoes and pebbles, a galaxy of round nondescript shapes. Forming at its edges are four growths of expensive truffles as tumors to a host, bringing associations of parasitical power relationships to mind.

A second work, Truffle Tumor (No Host) displays a swollen excess of nougats sliced in half within a shape traced from a tumor but hovering in a distinctly cloud-like fashion. Across the room, a sculpture produced from the word THIGHS emerges from the wall, using a typeface designed by the artist that has been extruded to such a degree that its legibility is compromised by the swelling expansion of each letter. Adjacent is a view of a corner of the Ahmanson Building of LACMA shown in section to expose exhibition floors and various ancillary and support spaces in the soon-to-be demolished building. Currently the work displays only public galleries that Lattu shot prior to entering into a contract he signed to be allowed to shoot in non-public spaces. The contract states that the images of restricted spaces can be displayed when the galleries are officially emptied on September 30th, 2019. Until then, the restricted spaces will be represented by blank under panels.

In the Martel gallery two large sculptural works - Potato and Archimedean Solid - are accompanied by a single explanatory photograph. Picturing the outside of the gallery, the image reveals what cannot be seen - the completion of the projecting potato and geometric form that extend invisibly, out onto the sidewalk and into the alley. The chosen entities make allusions to Cartesian mind-body dualism but this relationship is altered by the slice between interior and exterior as well as the indicated projection of the photograph.