Daxin Wu
"Currency Portraits"

THROUGH JULY 13
"Currency Portraits," features close-up photographs of the faces of heads of state from around the world ‹ the United Kingdom, United States, Israel, Japan, India, and China ‹ as depicted on their national currency.

After Wu photographs these portraits, he enlarges them and suspends the photos in blocks of ice. Cracks and hazy shafts of bubbles take shape as the ice freezes, blurring and distorting the images that had originally been rendered with care and respect by the currency engravers.

Thus transformed, the once exacting portraits look wispy, almost ghostly, and thereby visually strip the leaders of the very power their presence on money is intended to convey.

• Wu On China Square 
• Daxin Wu Official Site 

56 Arbor St.