Matt Borruso: Pictures | March 6 - April 18, 2026

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.

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. 

Jonathan Runcio: Shadow Work | March 6 - April 18, 2026

These geometries are local, yet distant — arm’s length
Built up and vacant
Direct, not iffy

I often think about the overproduction and preservation of artworks, the footprint these practices leave behind, their cost, and their environmental impact.

For these most recent works, I’ve found fertile ground in the used-up material culture generated by the art logistics industry.
Found objects, charged by market forces get outlined and painted.
Then outlined again.
Not the verso but a shadow version.
Imprinted and attached like an appendix.
There is friction in the balance.
Static in the copy.
This is shadow work.

Image:

Matt Borruso

Jonathan Runcio