Through images of Satan and Darth Vader, and references to the politics of the 1970s, Matthew Brannon will unexpectedly break your heart. His show at David Kordansky Gallery mirrors the sensation of biting the pit at the center of a peach: a bitter core beyond what was sweet and ripe, those first tastes of sex, shame, and brutality that accompany coming of age. Each work is like a confession suspended in the air at some claustrophobic party. Brannon’s is a world that blossoms and breaks with its acknowledgment that there is no escape from grief.

Matthew Brannon: Le Gant de Velours, Traversing the Fantasy, and the Thousand-Yard Stare
(Disparate Subjects Happening Concurrently, 1977-1979)
David Kordansky Gallery
5130 W. Edgewood Pl.,
Los Angeles, CA 90019
On view through October 19, 2024