Visual Arts Faculty

Amy Yao

Amy Yao headshot

Photo by Bill from Exhibition a

About

Amy Yao (b. Los Angeles, California) is a contemporary visual artist making work in many different mediums informed by ideas of waste and consumption.

Yao received a Bachelor of Fine Art (1999) from Art Center College of Design in California and a Master of Fine Arts (2007) from Yale University in Connecticut.

Yao has had solo exhibitions at venues including Goton, Paris, FR; Indipendenza, Rome, IT; 47 Canal, New York, NY; VI, VII, Oslo, NO; Jack Hanley Gallery, New York, NY; Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI; New Jerseyy, Basel, CH; and Mathew Gallery, Berlin, DE. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at galleries and institutions such as MoMA PS1, New York, NY; Swiss Institute, New York, NY; Honolulu Biennial 2019, HI; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ; San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, CA; He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, CN; Sommer Contemporary, Tel Aviv, IL; Air de Paris, FR; Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, NY; MAB Society, Shanghai, CN; and Andrew Kreps, New York, NY.

Writing about Yao's exhibition Weeds of Indifference in Artforum, critic Chloe Wymna noted, "Refusing the readymade’s historical and contemporary postures—the cynical/ironic critique of the commodity form, the mystification of materials—Yao’s gnomic, desublimated sculptures are sometimes puzzling and not always easy to love. Nonetheless, their difficulties reflect honest questions: 'What is even real?' she asks, speaking of when 'the new authentic is used to eradicate what came before.'"

In 1993, Yao was a founding member of Emily's Sassy Lime an all-Asian American teenage riot grrrl trio from Southern California. The band dissolved in 1997.

Yao is represented by Various Small Fires in Los Angeles, California, and Seoul, Korea, as well as 47 Canal in New York City and VI,VII in Oslo, Norway.

 

ARTWORK

 

 

Campus Address

Lewis Center for the Arts
185 Nassau Street

Email Address

ayao@princeton.edu