Matt Borruso
Pictures

March 6 - April 18, 2026
Reception Friday, March 6 5-8pm

1. 

Looking is a ritual. Paper, photographs, graphics, magazines, posters, postcards, and books. These days mostly photographs. Found, seen, studied, researched, moved around in piles and stacks. Some become collages or publications—new images, new objects.

The pictures here have been attached with magnets to thin galvanized steel sheets covered with black paper. These sheets have been arranged and rearranged, many beginning at the top left corner and moving downward from left to right—just like writing a letter. Sometimes images in close proximity suggest categories or generate new associations. Sometimes they don’t. 

These arrangements exist for a few weeks or a few months. When they seem complete they are photographed and taken apart. The elements are stored in an envelope along with the photograph of the arrangement so that it can be remade at a later date. This photograph becomes a map of the past and a diagram for the future. 

2.

“Adults and children sometimes have boards in their bedrooms or living-rooms on which they pin pieces of paper: letters, snapshots, reproductions of paintings, newspaper cuttings, original drawings, postcards. On each board all the images belong to the same language and all are more or less equal within it, because they have been chosen in a highly personal way to match and express the experience of the room's inhabitant. Logically, these boards should replace museums.”

John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1971

3.

Hands, gloves, spheres, religious statuary, mold-making, latex and plaster casts, doors, poles, black light posters, stills from theatrical productions, ikebana and flower arranging, fluorescent paper, Raku pottery, apes, goths, Disneyland, fake rubber noses, aliens, Monkey Island at the San Francisco Zoo, practical effects, Fendi, Albrecht Durer, Vaillancourt Fountain, macrame, bongs, Yeti, Pluto, Neanderthals, Alien, Giacometti, birthday cakes, toilets, Carlsbad Caverns, candelabras, Picasso, reapers, the Pompidou, ruins of the San Francisco earthquake, burlap, butterflies, caves, ape masks, arenas, Snow White, Goofy, The Naked Ape, Altered States, gorillas, candles, eclipses, constructed sets, auditoriums, Dracula, pink mountains, bunny suits, chrome pipes, sunsets, cowardly lions, Heavy Metal magazine, Hieronymous Bosch, Stonehenge, peanut butter, castles, pizza, pyramids, circles, ice cream, sculptors, bandages, Astroman, the color orange, Soylent Green, jello molds, Fellini Satyricon, televisions, mushrooms, Claes Oldenburg, hermits, Hans Arp, nets, mesh, Anthony Caro, ant hills, shoes, feet, lions, flares, depictions of Christ, Kansai Yamamoto, Pong, architectural models, trolls, panthers, chains, graveyards, gates, Maniac Cop, chairs, latex hoods, anonymous sculpture, boulders, black oil, Machu Pichu, duct tape, nuns, stuffed animals, cubes, palm trees, pineapples, chain link fences, the northern lights, windows, the Coliseum, buttresses, stools, armatures, cylinders, fungi, Cape Canaveral, succulents, the Grand Canyon, TV dinners, the Tower of London, Mantegna’s The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, enchiladas, hair, monumental stone heads, Tabi shoes, flip-flops, smoke, chrome lamps, spirals, cobra snakes, Venetian blinds, Barcelona chairs, cubes, mirrored surfaces, Woody Woodpecker, ladders, mummies, Freud’s study, scarecrows, custom vans, black balloons, ravens, Lou Reed, Pantone paper, minerals, crystals, The Lathe of Heaven on PBS, The Cell, cults, stingrays, Goofy, targets, bonsai trees, pancakes, sleeping people, scepters, claws, fountains, draperies, coffins, freeways, gingerbread men, Allen Jones, Egyptian cats, Rodin, fruit baskets, cacti, costumes, public sculpture, dogs, sphinxes, Bath, Universal Studios, Egyptian statuary, mines, Gucci, stalactites, stalagmites, pink flamingos, baboon sculptures, the Capitoline She-wolf, the Three Little Pigs, psychedelic posters, owls, catacombs, boots, atomic blasts, altars, domes, scaffolding, the color red, pits, palm trees, Polaroids, arches, bowls, rings, pendulums, theaters, wax figures, mannequins, crypts, hot mud, Piranesi, crucifixes, lava, temples, Tony the Tiger, Donald Duck, stone dogs, the Buddha, Sigourney Weaver, Boris Vallejo, Brasilia, explosions, volcanos, floppy hats, Poseidon, flowers, bedrooms, zigzags, Velazquez, eagles, French fries, sheep shearing, bridges, Abraham Lincoln, gargoyles, secret chambers, light wells, Chartres, glyphs, slugs, neon, the number nine, carnations, the Transamerica Pyramid, tomatoes, hallways, ruins, space ships, lasers, César, Isabella Adjani, elves, skeletons, harlequins, lily pads, fluorescent lights, wicker caskets, nuclear reactors, fried eggs, tunnels, alligators, space suits, hubcaps, Dubuffet, numerals, windows, sleep, Fantoft Stave Church, blurs, tombs, witches, rainbows, paintings, monks, shadows, traffic cones, bodybuilders, Marcel Breuer Wassily chairs, art classes, fragments, Ubald Klug Terrazza sofas, apples, Alice in Wonderland, birds, demons, photo test strips, bunnies, corridors, Hearst Castle, orchids, grids, radiators, the Hulk, paint pots, the Berlin Wall, spiral staircases, Karl Marx, graffiti, lens flares, crab salad, car wrecks, silver, hoods, handbags, cloaks, Niagra Falls, graves.

Matt Borruso lives and works in San Francisco. This is his third solo show at Et al. He has also had solo exhibitions at La Mofetta, 1599fdt, Cloaca Projects, Steven Wolf Fine Arts, and 2nd Floor Projects in San Francisco, and at Black Ball Projects in Brooklyn. He has participated in group exhibitions at Public Access, Anna Kustera, and Derek Eller, New York;  Et al. etc. and House of Seiko in San Francisco; Sister, Los Angeles; Celaya Brothers, Mexico City; and Exile Projects, Berlin. Since 2015 he has published under his imprint Visible Publications and his books are in the library collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the International Center of Photography. Borruso received his MFA from Yale University in 2004 and his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2002.