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Yiyao Tang

Brooklyn, NY
Summer 2026 * Art

Artist Statement


Using personal devices and inventive setups, Yiyao Tang constructs and contests ideas on freedom, trauma, justice, otherness, and memory. Her setups behave twofold: both object and subject of her ideas, often leading to unpredictable outcomes themselves. More than just an archival account, Tang’s approach approximates archaeology in her ongoing process of uncovering evidence of our own contemporary artefacts, collective memories, and climactic traumas. 

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The artist with her work Faulting, 2024. Photo by Ling

Works

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Faulting, 2024, Ink print on coconut coir bricks, TV monitors, surveillance cameras, and seeds, Dimensions variable, Photo by Ling

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Faulting, 2024, Ink print on coconut coir bricks, TV monitors, surveillance cameras, and seeds, Dimensions variable, Photo by Ling

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Faulting, Glimpsing, 2025, Ink print on coconut coir bricks, TV monitors, surveillance cameras, seeds, MDF board, and plywood, Dimensions variable, Photo by Ling

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compressing, expanding, 2024, Ink on coconut coir bricks and MDF board, Dimensions variable, Photo by Ling

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compressing, expanding #14, 2024, Ink on coconut coir bricks, 32 3/4 × 45 1/4 × 2 3/4 in., with backing panel, Photo by Ling

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Packaging Room, 2025, Nylon, packaging paper, cardboard inserts, and plastic, Dimensions variable, Photo by Kunning

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sheltering, lingering, 2024–2026, Silverpoint, ink, iron, scaffolding couplers, and construction boards, Dimensions variable, Photo by Ling

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sheltering, lingering, 2024–2026, Silverpoint, ink, and iron, 4 × 8 × 2 in, Photo by Ling

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molding, migrating, 2024, Rebars and die molds, Dimensions variable, Photo by Ling

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swaying, hovering, 2024, Coconut coir bricks and rebars, Dimensions variable, Photo by Ling

About the Artist


Yiyao Tang (b.1996, China) lives and works in New York and Shanghai. She received her BFA from Pratt Institute in 2018 and her MDes from Harvard University in 2023. Tang’s practice coalesces mediums of intervention, projection, and installation to explore how social and political systems are embedded within images and objects.

Her solo exhibitions include: Faulting, Glimpsing, ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai, 2025; The Currents We Carry, Hong Museum, 2025; Faulting, Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai, 2024; Mattering, theBlanc Gallery, New York, 2023; Precarious, Kirkland Gallery, Cambridge, 2022. Group presentations include Carriage Trade, Power Station of Art, CC Foundation, How Art Museum, West Bund Art Center, A4 Museum, and Kunsthalle Zürich. She is a recipient of the Café Royal Cultural Foundation Visual Grant and has participated in residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and Swatch Art Peace Hotel.

@yiyao.tang

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