Xin Liu

Just two works make up ‘The Permanent and the Insatiable’, Xin Liu’s solo show at Management in New York.

- Annabel Keenan

One, a large aquarium featuring a model of lower Manhattan submerged in water, stands in the centre of the dimly lit room. Titled The Permanent and the Insatiable: New York (both works 2025), the ominous sculpture raises immediate questions. Is this a post-apocalyptic fantasy or a prediction of the city’s fate in light of the rising sea level - or both?

Mixed with the distilled water is a plastic-eating enzyme that Liu, an artist and engineer, synthesized in collaboration with researcher Erika Erickson. Resembling a ghostly exoskeleton, the model city is made of post-consumer plastic that is primarily clear in colour. When submerged in the enzyme solution, this plastic slowly dissolves, less permanent, apparently, than the buildings represented.

This process, the gallery director tells me, is expected to take years. The second work,