O-1 Visas
Jiaqi Liu specializes in neat illustrations of enigmatic situations. Do cities dream of their future selves, do they have wishes for their own development? In “Mirage,” a public artwork from 2024, Liu set up a pair of tourist binoculars on the East Side of Manhattan. Looking through, viewers could see not just the modest skyline of Queens but also, hovering above it, a vision of the monumental New York City skyline, as if that outer borough were projecting its fantasies for all to consider. In “Dear Water,” from 2026, philosophical questions about water are answered with basic scientific formulas, printed on water-soluble paper, then placed in a body of water, whereupon they promptly dissolve. One of the primary inanimate elements of the earth thereby proves the extraordinarily limited affect of certain types of human answers. We should all think like water, at least some of the time.
—Lori Waxman 9/28/26 12:37 PM