Best Space Energizer
Beili Liu
The air just feels different around a work by Beili Liu, as anyone can tell you who recalls The Mending Project, her stunning installation at Women & Their Work with 1,500 pairs of iron scissors suspended overhead; or Amass at Texas State University, where 16 10-foot spears were held in space by floor-to-ceiling threads like gigantic webs that caught them in mid-flight. Liu's grand scale and meticulous placement of materials charge the atmosphere and raise the hairs on your neck – an effect she achieved even on Lady Bird Lake, with a ghostly white tree hovering above the water in THIRST, created with architects Norma Yancey and Emily Little, and landscape architect Cassie Bergstrom. More and more, Liu is asked to make work around the world, but we hope she'll keep generating power here for a long time.
