UCR ARTS is pleased to present the first U.S. career survey of work by Brandon Lattu. Empirical, Textual, Contextual, curated by Charlotte Cotton is on view through February 6, 2022, at UCR ARTS’ California Museum of Photography in downtown Riverside, California. 

Situated within the broad and mercurial image environment in which we create and consume, this sensorial and cerebral exhibition examines Lattu’s twenty-five-year artistic practice working in photography, sculpture, and video. Including both his pioneering work as an early adopter of digital imaging processes alongside recent and new projects that employ technologies like computer-aided design and light sensors, the exhibition offers insights into the through lines of his substantial creative life. 

Speaking to the concept and title of his exhibition, Brandon Lattu says, “this exhibition shifts back and forth between the empirical experience of fascination and the ways that the unruliness of art is frequently governed by texts, visible or otherwise.” 

“Brandon’s cultural influence rests in his ongoing capacity to push ideas about photography and the patterns and paradoxes of our cultural conditions, regardless of material form. This exhibition offers a distilled and dynamic experience of a remarkable creative journey over the past three decades, one that has culminated into an exhibition of deep contemporary resonance,” says the exhibition’s curator Charlotte Cotton. 

The works on view include singular photographic prints, videos and animated slideshows, computer-carved sculptures, and an interactive light installation. Miracle Mile (2000) is a sequence of images depicting illuminated signs perpendicular to the flow of traffic on Wilshire Boulevard between Fairfax and La Brea avenues in Los Angeles. An early and inquisitive use of digital imaging and composition, each section stacks the internally lit signs with adherence to their actual position and relative scale. 

The Not Human (2013) slideshow centers on the computational failure of early biometric algorithms to distinguish between an inanimate representation of a face and an actual human being. Using Lattu’s photographic archive of 120,000 images digitally captured between 2003 and 2013, algorithmic filters consistently fail to recognize human subjects and, instead, select and crop pictures of faces used in advertising that are placed in public by the commercial desires of industry. The consistent digital errors are both galling and entertaining, especially in light of the inherent biases as well as failures of our present-day biometric environment. 

Reciprocity of Light (2007-10/202) is an artwork exploring photographic representation, architecture, and bodily interactivity.  First developed by Lattu in 2007, the installation is activated by the movement of bodies through the space, turning a viewer’s shadow cast from a point light source onto an array of light-sensitive cells such that the shadow is produced in a display of light, a reversal of our normal phenomenological expectation of a shadow as a denial of light. The simultaneous action of the individual cells demonstrates the indexical nature of photography by abstracting the form and motion of the body in real-time. 

Other works investigate the empirical capacities of photography, such as Denim, Levi’s 501©, Made in USA (2002), where Lattu scanned the denim of a pair of Levi’s 501© and printed at actual size to make the most accurate rendition of this iconic American material. Since this work was made, the production of Levi’s 501© jeans has moved outside of the USA. Together, the approximately forty objects on view attest to Lattu’s restlessly experimental approach to the conceptual freedom of photography. 

Support for this exhibition comes from UCR CHASS, City of Riverside, Kathy Wright & Dwight Tate, and Ann DeWolfe. 

Visit UCR ARTS for additional details. 

About Brandon Lattu 

Lattu investigates the constantly changing state of representation in order to push beyond the conventional empiricism that pictures of the world have traditionally invoked. His work particularly addresses the social structures emphasized and enforced by models of perspective and abstraction as well as spatial hierarchies in architecture and commerce. 

Solo exhibitions include Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles (2019); Koenig and Clinton, New York (2013); Mak Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles (2010); and Kunstverein, Bielefeld, Germany (2007). His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Tasweer Photo Festival Qatar (2021); the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA (2013); Powerstation of Art, Shanghai, China (2012); Fundación Jumex, Ecatapec, Mexico (2012); Museum Ostwall, Dortmund, Germany (2011); the Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam, NL (2009); Vox Centre de L’image Contemporaine, Montreal, Canada (2008); the Essl Collection, Vienna, Austria (2007); Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2006); and the Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2000). 

Lattu lives and works in Los Angeles and is a Professor in the Art Department at the University of California, Riverside 

About Charlotte Cotton 

Exhibition curator Charlotte Cotton is currently artistic director of the Tasweer Photo Festival Qatar. She has held numerous institutional positions including curator of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum; head of programming at The Photographers’ Gallery in London; curator in residence at the ICP, New York; and curator and head of the Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is the author of books including Photography is Magic [2015]; Public, Private, Secret: On Photography and the Configuration of Self [2018]; and Fashion Image Revolution [2018]. Her book, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, is published in over ten languages and has been a key text in charting the rise of photography as an undisputed art form in the 21st century. The fourth edition was published in September 2020. 

About UCR ARTS 

UCR ARTS advances the understanding and appreciation of the arts through extraordinary experiences in contemporary visual and performing art and photography and photographic technologies, past and present. Presenting major exhibitions, artist projects, performances and community programs, and independent and foreign language films, UCR ARTS engages both global and regional audiences. 

UCR ARTS opened in 2010, bringing together the California Museum of Photography (founded in 1973), the Jack and Marilyn Sweeney Art Gallery (1963), and the Barbara & Art Culver Center of the Arts (2010). 

The extensive art, photography, and research collections of the California Museum of Photography and the Jack and Marilyn Sweeney Art Gallery make UCR ARTS an important destination for audiences as well as researchers working in a wide range of fields. Ucrarts.ucr.edu 

Visitor Information 

Admission is free thanks to the generosity of sponsors Altura Credit Union and Anheuser-Busch. Advanced reservations are encouraged and can be made online. Email ucrarts@ucr.edu with questions or for additional assistance. 

In response to COVID-19, numerous precautions are in place, including: 

• Face masks are required regardless of vaccination status.
• If you feel unwell, please reschedule your visit.
• Hand sanitizing stations are available throughout the sites.
• As always, large bags, food, and drink are not permitted.
• Enhanced cleaning protocols are in place and ventilation filters are changed regularly.

Hours: Thursday and Friday 12–5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Closed Monday- Wednesday. 

UCR ARTS, including the California Museum of Photography and the Culver Center of the Arts, is located at 3824 + 3834 Main Street in downtown Riverside, California. Paid parking is available at several nearby lots.