First Chinese artist on display in UN headquarters plaza in New York

Undercurrent, a massive steel sculpture by celebrated artist Zheng Lu, is on view until August 2024 in the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, just outside the United Nations complex in New York.

The plaza was created in the mid-20th century, when 47th Street was widened to accommodate the new UN headquarters. Zheng is the first Chinese artist to have their work exhibited there.

The public art project, initiated by Sundaram Tagore, Zheng's US gallerist and a descendant of renowned Indian poet and thinker, Rabindranath Tagore, is supported by the World Council of Peoples for the United Nations, a nonprofit organization founded in Europe after World War II, which is dedicated to facilitating international partnerships that promote awareness and implementation of UN goals.

The sculpture was created especially for the site and relates to recent UN climate action initiatives. Part of the artist's acclaimed Water in Dripping series, Undercurrent emphasizes the significance of water as a symbolic medium of change, self-reflection and the passage of time, as well as a symbol of a temperate planet, where the presence of water — a rapidly diminishing resource — enables life.

Zheng's sculptures have been exhibited around the world, most recently in the group exhibition, Summoning Memories: Art Beyond Chinese Traditions, at the Asia Society in Houston, Texas.

His work will also be on view at a solo exhibition at Sundaram Tagore's New York gallery that is slated to open next year.