Yahan Wang is pleased to celebrate the success of Ways of Seeing, a 3-day pop-up exhibition that took place at Museum 54 in Tribeca, New York in March 2023. The exhibition discussed women’s identity from a subjective viewpoint of a female. As the curator of this breakthrough toward conventional depictions of women, Wang involved herself in the event at a full range.
For centuries, women were objects to either the spiritual or ideal world depicted by artists of all kinds. What Wang aimed to achieve was to replace that passive position that women were put in with their own positive and direct perspective in the form of sculptures, paintings, photography, etc.
“We picked art pieces from six female artists. Each of them has their own way of expressing the female identity and body through different mediums” Wang explained, “We aim to let females be seen from a completely female perspective instead of being an observed object from other’s lens.”
From choosing artworks to curating the space, Wang and the team closely coordinated and communicated with each artist to make sure the space was perfectly used to bring all the works together as a whole story. Although Wang had worked on a variety of exhibitions before, she continued finding the excitement of fully putting herself into every step of curating an exhibition.
Wang was pleased with how the exhibition came out ultimately, not only because the number of visitors exceeded her expectations, but also because of the connection she established with both artists and visitors. Wang set an example of how a successful curator is required to make proper decisions on what works of art to display and how they should be displayed to maximally bring out the story line behind each work as well as make the presentation accessible to people who know about art and who do not.
This is also reflected in Wang’s career path at Artnet, where she delivers extraordinary solutions to clients’ needs respectively. Wang believes it’s important to understand the clients and the scenario of the project first in order to come up with any creative ideas, which is why tons of communication and research needs to be done before shaping a proper proposal on a design.
“Coordinating with clients is a critical part of my responsibilities, which is similar to the way I coordinate and communicate with artists as a curator. Understanding clients’ needs for a design campaign is related to understanding artists’ creative methodology for a curation project,” Wang shared.
Working on different advertising campaigns with reputed dealers and galleries is a test for Wang’s understanding of prestigious artists and putting her aesthetics and art knowledge into designs. In a recent project, Wang worked on a gallery’s branding campaign. Wang was asked to create a set of advertising banners on three black and white photographers and promote the artwork, artist and the gallery at the same time based on the client’s needs . Wang created a GIF to rotate these three elements within the detail of the photograph highlighted in the design to address the African culture indicated in the work.
Having all materials as black and white, Wang wanted to present them in a creative way so they can stand out on the website. The layout of the banner and the part of the photograph needed to be captured was a decisive decision to make when designing. Wang kept the part of the portrait that best described the vibe of the character and the detail of the outfit that best reflected the local culture so the idea of the artist could be addressed on a limited size banner. Her design on this set of banners received the client’s approval after the first round of review and went straight to live. Wang’s ability to adapt and input her aesthetics into something visual is what makes her noteworthy as an outstanding designer and curator.
