Upon entering the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the first exhibit you see is Golden Gate.
The installation, which features eight works by the late Chinese-American artist Hung Liu, is a must-see celebration of migrants and American workers. Liu simultaneously pays homage to and critically examines the two cultures that her identity was comprised of– The San Francisco Bay Area, and Changchun, China.
In 1948, Liu was born in Changchun China. On one side of the room, the pieces inspired by her life in China and coming of age under the Mao regime are displayed. The works shown on the opposite wall detail Liu’s migration to America.
In 1984, Liu immigrated from China to the United States to attend the University of San Diego. She later relocated to San Francisco and settled in the Bay area, where she made art until her sudden death in August 2021.
Golden Gate was originally set to run from July 2021-March 2022 but has been extended until August 7, 2022 in Liu’s honor and as a response to the installation’s ongoing popularity.
The installation is Liu’s final exhibit and according to the exhibit curator, Janna Keegan, it is meant to portray immigration as a bridge that connects Liu’s two cultures.
In the middle of the exhibit, bridging between Liu’s coinciding identities, is “Resident Alien,” a 2021 reproduction of Liu’s 1988 smaller-scale portrait of the same name and the largest, most eye-catching work in the exhibit.
At a glance, the mural appears to be a standard depiction of a green card. However, Liu made subtle yet incredibly powerful changes. Complete with a self-portrait of Liu in the right-hand corner, her name appears as “Cookie, Fortune.” Through this reference, Liu effectively demonstrates the commercialized, inauthentic lens through which Americans perceive her culture and herself as a Chinese immigrant.
Like her name, Liu’s birth year has also been changed. Liu was born in 1948, but the green card reads “DOB 1984,” suggesting that she was forced to start an entirely new life when she came to the U.S.
To Lynn King, a de Young admissions attendant who has supervised the Golden Gate exhibit since it opened on July 17, 2021, a particularly interesting element of “Resident Alien” lies in Liu’s misspelling of the word “immigration.”
“[Liu] intentionally spells it as ‘immignation,’ which can be interpreted in a few different ways,” King said. “Some people believe that the misspelling is supposed to look like ‘imagination’, referring to the way some immigrants can naively view the experience of migrating to America through rose-colored glasses. I personally feel that ‘immignation’ was her combining ‘immigrant’ and ‘nation’ to convey the message that this is a nation made up of immigrants who are deeply important to the culture and society we live in.”
King said the contributions of immigrants to American society are something Liu highlights continuously throughout her works.
“One thing that Liu wanted people to take away from her work is that immigrants are people, distinct individuals,” she explained. “She didn’t like the term ‘alien,’ she found it dehumanizing. That is why terms like ‘cookie’ are highlighted in some of her pieces.”
Golden Gate conveys the way in which migrants are dehumanized with works such as “Plowboy” and “Cotton Picker,” in which Liu depicts the conditions many migrant workers are forced to endure when they arrive in the United States.
Before her passing, Liu said that she turned to depression-era American photojournalist Dorothy Lange for inspiration. “Plowboy” is a stylized oil painting inspired by Lange’s photograph of the same name. In Lange’s photo, two men identified as ‘plowboys’ are seen from a distance, working under the sweltering sun on a desolate, brown field in Alabama circa 1936. In the caption of the photo, Lange states that the men working earned only 75 cents daily.
Liu’s “Plowboy” shows viewers a more up close and personal view of Lange’s photograph. The painting features a young, African-American man in farm clothes with the same fields from Lange’s photograph vaguely present in the background.
In Golden Gate, Liu emphasizes the idea that immigrants, while they provide a substantial contribution to American society, are more than simply what they have to offer us. The exhibit shows immigrants are people and deserve to be perceived beyond just their ability to work and provide, King said.
Visit the de Young’s website in order to book your visit and honor the legacy of Hung Liu. Tickets are free for those under 17, 6$ for students, and 15$ for general admission.