Commissioned by and developed in collaboration with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, whose 2020–21 season featured classical music performances in dialogue with visual artworks, Wang developed To Have Still the Things You Had Before, a sculptural response to Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale.
Wang placed a baby grand piano in the California desert, where it was subjected to 400 rounds of gunfire, leaving the instrument on the brink of collapse. She then dismantled the piano, hand-flocked each of its components, and subsequently reassembled it and reinforced the wooden frame, transforming an act of destruction into one of obsession. The painstaking and meticulous labor that went into the process became a ritual in itself: one of concealment and containment.
The Soldier’s Tale emerged during a time of global upheaval. Though innovative, it was a financial failure, overshadowed by the 1918 influenza pandemic. Its acerbic undertones, cross-rhythmic complexity, and shifting meters eerily presaged the instability of 2020. To Have Still the Things You Had Before reimagines the musical tensions and contradictions of The Soldier’s Tale as a visual polarity, reflecting on a world increasingly at odds with itself.
This work marked the inception of an ongoing investigation into the piano as sculptural mythology: an allegory of cultural idealization and the gradual unraveling of that very construct. The inquiry continues in her 2024–2025 project, part of which culminates in a film where the piano occupies a central role in a surreal funeral procession. Together, these works constitute the first two installments of a developing trilogy that traces a passage through fantasy and reckoning.
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Acknowledgments:
Gratitude goes to James Darrah, Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, for his invaluable faciliation and advocacy throughout the development of this work. Deep thanks as well to Jonny Black of Wilhardt & Naud for his generosity; to Emila Yin of Make Room Gallery for her sustained support; to Dylan Owens for his mechanical expertise; and to the LACO production team, especially Tony Shayne, for their dedicated assistance and considerable provision of resources.