Filter Photo is pleased to present, The Other Stories, a solo exhibition of work by Cody Bratt.

“The stories in this series pick up with two men—my paternal great-grandfather and my maternal grandfather. Of course, the stories neither began nor ended with them exclusively.

The stories they would have you remember are about legacy. Their stories were about publishing poetry in 1950s San Francisco, documenting labor rights movements, being a celebrated school superintendent, and fighting the good wars. Their sons and daughters, although particularly their sons, might have you solely remember these stories, too.

But, then there are The Other Stories:
about a grandfather molesting his granddaughter,
about a wife complicit in her husband’s fondness for young girls,
about a husband lighting his wife’s hair on fire,
about a son left in the car while his parents drink at the bar,
about a ninety year old man attempting to choke his adult daughter.

These are the stories no one wants to remember about the cycles of physical violence, substance abuse and mental health disorders passed down from one generation to the next like a virus.

This series concerns itself with the interrogation of intergenerational violence and whether healing is truly possible using the archives of two families for which these issues are particularly pronounced.

The work presupposes that all families contain some form of this
unanswerable riddle—whether you know it or not, whether you are willing to look or not.

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This story is about sunlight being the best disinfectant.”

—Cody Bratt

Cody Bratt (b. 1982) is a San Francisco-born and based artist. His father, a photoengraver, and his mother, a multimedia artist, inspired his love of photography and book making, in particular. He holds a BA in Rhetoric with a formal concentration in Narrative and Image from the University of California, Berkeley (2005). Shying away from a literal approach, Cody’s photography employs primarily non-linear emotional or psychological approaches to exploring subjects and concepts. Unreliable memories, displacement, loss and coming of age feature centrally in Cody’s work.

He has exhibited internationally at Athens Photo Festival, Berlin Art Week, Month of Photography Los Angeles, Griffin Museum of Photography, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, ICP Museum, Brighton Photo Fringe, Filter Photo Festival amongst others. Cody is a 2016 LensCulture Emerging 50 Talent, 2018 PDN 30 nominee and 2019 Review Santa Fe attendee. His most recent series, THE OTHER STORIES, was honored with a 2020 CENTER Awards Director’s Choice Award. Cody’s first monograph, LOVE WE LEAVE BEHIND, debuted by Fraction Editions in 2018. The series was awarded a 2018 Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 distinction, named as a finalist for the 2016 Duke University CDS/Honickman First Book Prize and had images selected and published as winners in American Photography 34 (2018).

His work is public and private collections in several states across the US, as well as Europe. Cody’s work has been published worldwide in print and online venues including PDN, LENSCRATCH, LensCulture, Lomography Magazine, iGNANT, Gente Di Fotografia, Blur Magazine, Aint-Bad, and Float Magazine amongst others.

This exhibition is partially sponsored by The Illinois Arts Council Agency.

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Exhibition Dates: February 2nd – March 9th, 2024
Gallery Reception: February 2nd | 6 – 9 PM
Location: Filter Space | 1821 W Hubbard St, Suite 207
Gallery Hours: Monday – Saturday, 11 AM – 5 PM *by appointment only

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Tags: Chicago, Cody Bratt, Cody Bratt: The Other Stories, Filter Photo, West Town