O-1 Visas
What does Catherine Lyu long for? She doesn’t say, not quite, but in “Apartment 213,” her half of on longings, a recent two-person show curated by Esme Graham at the Hyde Park Art Center, the absence of another human being is palpable. Lyu stages this feeling minimally: a brown chair on a cheap rug sits in front of a large color photograph pinned to the wall. The photo shows a simple kitchen, life-size; next to the fridge stands an empty black shelf atop which rests a vase of bright flowers and an Etch A Sketch declaring, “I will dedicate an hour in a day to think about you.” The sentence reappears handwritten, over and over again, amid other blurred-out text, on notepaper stacked on a nearby stool. A lamp completes the spare domestic scene. Romantic yearning and its object are the obvious guess, but funereal sentiment lurks, that black shelf and bouquet subtly coffin-like. The viewer, meanwhile, will know who their “you” might be, or if there even is one.
—Lori Waxman 8/14/26 4:30 PM