The Millitzer Studio & Gallery: Saturday, 22 April 2017

Pacific Rose
new works by Cole Lu

Opening Reception April 22, 2017   7–10pm

April 22–May 28, 2017 on view by appointment

The story has two interpretations of its beginnings, one is the story culled from personal memory, and the other is a fictional landscape. Both contain the dual functionality as queer evidence and gesture. Drawing on Gertrude Stein’s imperative to “act so that there is no use in a centre”; the sculptural works determinedly avoid conventional narrative, and de-center the art in the contemporary age of display. Pacific Rose act as nonsense literature, which creates meaning out of form with an anarchic potential by making fun of language, presents a challenge to the power visual language has to name, know, and own the world. It is a parody of sense, and that is the sense of it. The installation presents a space that does not distinguish between an ocean, a shore, a pool, or a gallery. Rather, it is a borderland that is outside or beyond language and definition--a space of creative potential. The sculptural works detail an alien’s identity--as both queer and migrant--with a significant geographical feature: water in the dryland. The objects we identify within the sculptures: an old book, snow skis, plants, a neon light, concrete, metal, plastic, faux suede and a rock do not directly reference the ocean or a pool. They speak to loss and belonging, and they abstractly elaborate on water’s wetness and the vastness of the sea

The Millitzer Studio & Gallery

3103 Pestalozzi Street

St. Louis, MO 63118