Liu Xiaodong: Spring in New York

Liu Xiaodong’s Spring in New York is a quietly powerful series of watercolor paintings made during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Chinese artist found himself unexpectedly stranded in New York. Liu is known for his observational realism and his sensitive portrayal of humanity caught in moments of global issues such as population displacement, environmental crisis, and economic upheaval. In this series, he turns his attention to the surreal stillness of pandemic-era New York, capturing a city emptied of its usual energy and movement, and later, its reawakening in the form of protest. Created between March and June 2020, the paintings chronologically reflect Liu’s daily walks through the West Village and beyond, where he documented what he saw with his usual mix of directness and subtle emotion. In April, there are brought blossoming trees in a closed playground (Children’s Park 2020.4.14); in early May, he captured a socially distanced game of chess at Astor Place (East Village 2020.5.6). In late May, the energy shifted as Black Lives Matter protesters took to the streets (At My Doorstop 2020.6.1). The exhibition of Spring in New York was itself shaped by the conditions of the pandemic; it was launched digitally by Lisson Gallery in June 2020, at a time when galleries remained closed.

“You wouldn’t imagine this, in such a liberal city, that everyone would be so obedient. You couldn’t imagine they would all stay home and leave the streets empty. It’s unthinkable” (04:22–04:40 ), Liu says in a short video where he discusses this recent body of work, while walking the streets of New York City. His words underscore the strangeness of the time and the depth of change the pandemic imposed even on a city like New York. Liu was among the leading Chinese Neo-Realist painters to emerge in the 1990s. Neo Realism is a painting style that originated in 1990s China, a reaction against the more ideological and formalist aesthetics of earlier Socialist Realism. Unlike the heroic portrayals of the collective common good typical of Mao-era propaganda art, Neo-Realism focuses on the ordinary, the unidealized, and the deeply personal. In this series, Liu carries this forward through his candid depictions of everyday people in contemporary settings with his loose, expressive brushstrokes and a documentary sensibility with watercolor and the creative medium of acrylic of C-print. His works preserve the strangeness of a moment when ordinary routines vanished, replaced by a new, fragile reality.