Elad Lassry probes and disrupts photographic images and prescribed modes of looking in order to analyze the relationship between objects and their representations. Using various elements to obscure images, Lassry alters the flatness and framing of his pictures, destabilizing how we engage with photography. Initially shown at SFMOMA in January 2020, and now reimagined as an online viewing room, this exhibition brings together three distinct groupings of new work: collaged photographs, which employ sourced archival negatives from sales catalogues and amateur snapshots of nature; outtakes from an imaginary fashion campaign; and container-like structures made from used motorcycle gas tanks. Seen together, these photographs and sculptures feel familiar yet disorienting. Lassry’s rigorous conceptual strategies generate intentional collisions, highlighting perceptual paradoxes inherent to the photographic medium, while questioning the very meaning of pictures in contemporary culture.
