M+B is pleased to announce Vatnajökull, Matthew Brandt's fifth solo exhibition at the gallery. The show marks the debut of a new series which takes on the glacial terrain in Iceland as its subject. This new body of work extends the artist’s on-going interest in the chemical color process and is his third to explore chromogenic material with natural elements.

Matthew Brandt’s photographic practice is relentlessly experimental, even as he remains committed to traditional modes of picture-making. The artist's unorthodox treatments and use of materials both dismantle and celebrate the classic genre of landscape photography, with his interventions inviting the viewer to develop a deeper relationship with the subject and the photograph.

In Vatnajökull, Brandt captures the powerful geothermal intensities of Iceland’s wilderness. He exposes his photographs of the Vatna ice field to fire and heat, and then through color-separation creates a range of tonalities across multiple impressions of a single image. With their blistered and undulating surfaces, each photograph emerges with its own topography. For the viewer, the act of looking becomes a haptic, multi-sensorial experience, tactile and pulsing. In bridging subject with material, Brandt enlists the senses to make meaning of the rugged, majestic landscape.

Matthew Brandt (b. 1982, Los Angeles, CA) received his BFA from Cooper Union and MFA from UCLA. The artist has been the subject of numerous institutional solo shows, including Rocks and Eagles at the Newark Museum, NJ, Sticky/Dusty/Wet at the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus OH, which travelled to the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA and SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA. Upcoming solo shows include the Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art in Saint Petersburg, Russia in Spring 2021. His work has also been featured in the exhibitions New Territory: Landscape Photography Today at the Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; The Magic Medium at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Second Chances at the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; What is a Photograph? at the International Center of Photography, New York, NY; and Land Marks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. In 2015, the artist was shortlisted for the prestigious Prix Pictet award and had his work showcased in an exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Brandt's work can be found in the permanent collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Brooklyn Museum of Art, among others. Matthew Brandt lives and works in Los Angeles.

Matthew BrandtVatnajökulL

March 21 - JUNE 20, 2020

Matthew Brandt

VatnajökulL