Greene Exhibitions, Los Angeles
October 27 – December 15, 2012
Greene Exhibitions proudly presents Shed No Tears for Broken Nails, its first solo exhibition with the artist Peter Wu. The artist will feature new works from his FFF and Zzyzx Rd. series, as well as introduce a new body of sound and sculpture works, Substantia Alba.
Beginning with his latest series, Substantia Alba (in medical parlance: the name for white nerve tissue that connects the brain and spinal cord), the artist creates an excavation site for his memory. Fragments of the past break free from the plaster like a Pompeian villa: the walls from his family-run restaurant, beloved tchotchkes, and other shapes are intermingled amongst the structure. Some are clear; others have lost much of their profile, or have been disfigured through the impacts that expose them.
Accompanying the central excavation/sculpture is the sound of Wu’s voice, recorded in 1998, recounting a memory from his childhood that frames the tone of the entire exhibition. The hero of the story, Wu’s father, passes along a small but significant trinket to the artist. Even though the years and several moves across the continent have claimed the object itself, the memory’s effect is undiminished. The interplay between the central work and the story emanates across the entire gallery, raising questions about the difference in meaning between objects that are and are not present.
The latest updates to the Zzyzx Rd. series emerge from the playfulness and puns of the previous series to focus on the poetics of Wu’s arrangements. There are fewer identifiable moves, but each gesture is a bolder commitment to the object’s integrity. This preservation of the elements advances Wu’s investigations into how memories can be both reimagined and reconstructed.
The latest additions to the FFF series completes the artist’s dialectic of memory and material. The works succinctly state key elements of the entire exhibition: fragments of memory, familiar shapes of the past, and the passage of time that robs the past of its authentic detail. In “Shed No Tears for Broken Nails”, Wu renews the objects of the past, giving them a new life to haunt the present.
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Untitled (Faults), 2012
24kt Gold Leaf over gallery floor cracks
Dimensions variable
FFF, 2012
Archival pigment print
Unframed: 30 x 41.5 inches
Framed: 31 x 42.5 inches
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
Substantia Alba, 2012
Plaster, acrylic paint, bell, wooden base
speaker with sound [Audio recorded in 1998 – 2 min audio with 5 min silence looped]
36.25 x 36.25 x 44.5 inches
Substantia Alba, 2012
Plaster, acrylic paint, bell, wooden base
speaker with sound [Audio recorded in 1998 – 2 min audio with 5 min silence looped]
36.25 x 36.25 x 44.5 inches
Substantia Alba, 2012
Plaster, acrylic paint, bell, wooden base
speaker with sound [Audio recorded in 1998 – 2 min audio with 5 min silence looped]
36.25 x 36.25 x 44.5 inches
Detail
FFF, 2012
Archival pigment print
Unframed: 38 x 56.5 inches
Framed: 39 x 57.5 inches
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
Substantia Alba (Figure 2), 2012
Plaster, acrylic paint, wood and plexiglass shadowbox
13.75 x 17.5 x 7 inches
Substantia Alba (Figure 3), 2012
Plaster, acrylic paint, wood and plexiglass shadowbox
13.75 x 17.5 x 7 inches
Substantia Alba (Figure 1), 2012
Plaster, acrylic paint, wood and plexiglass shadowbox
13.75 x 17.5 x 7 inches
Substantia Alba (Figure 4), 2012
Plaster, acrylic paint, wood and plexiglass shadowbox
13.75 x 17.5 x 7 inches
601 Zzyzx Rd., 2012
Mixed media
Sculpture: 10.25 x 14 x 15 inches
Shelf: 10.25 x 16.25 x 16.25 inches
601 Zzyzx Rd., 2012
Mixed media
Sculpture: 10.25 x 14 x 15 inches
Shelf: 10.25 x 16.25 x 16.25 inches
601 Zzyzx Rd., 2012
Mixed media
Sculpture: 10.25 x 14 x 15 inches
Shelf: 10.25 x 16.25 x 16.25 inches
Detail
599 Zzyzx Rd., 2012
Mixed media
Sculpture: 12.5 x 13 x 12 inches
Shelf: 10.25 x 16.25 x 16.25 inches
599 Zzyzx Rd., 2012
Mixed media
Sculpture: 12.5 x 13 x 12 inches
Shelf: 10.25 x 16.25 x 16.25 inches
Detail
600 Zzyzx Rd., 2012
Mixed media
Sculpture: 10.25 x 14 x 15 inches
Shelf: 10.25 x 16.25 x 16.25 inches
600 Zzyzx Rd., 2012
Mixed media
Sculpture: 10.25 x 14 x 15 inches
Shelf: 10.25 x 16.25 x 16.25 inches
600 Zzyzx Rd., 2012
Mixed media
Sculpture: 10.25 x 14 x 15 inches
Shelf: 10.25 x 16.25 x 16.25 inches
Detail
