Yuan Goang-Ming: Everyday War Public Opening

Fresh from the Venice Biennale, the Asian Art Museum is proud to bring the acclaimed work of Yuan Goang-Ming, the ‘father of Taiwanese video art,’ to the U.S. for the first time. Get a taste of the global art fair experience and celebrate the opening of Everyday War in style at this festive evening featuring music by DJ Yuka Yu, photo ops, cocktails, and a special chance to hear the artist speak about the exhibition.

In his search for peace and common ground in an uncertain age, Yuan’s immersive video and installation work unites audiences with moments of celebration and connection. Join our museum community, the artist, and exhibition curator Abby Chen to toast one of the world’s leading contemporary artists from Asia as he makes his solo North American debut here in San Francisco.

Schedule

5:30–5:50 PM | Tour of Everyday War with artist Yuan Goang-Ming and curator Abby Chen (space is limited; first come, first served)

6–6:45 PM | Artist Yuan Goang-Ming in conversation with Abby Chen, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Asian Art Museum and curator of Everyday War, moderated by Summer Mei Ling Lee

7–8 PM | Celebration Party with DJ Yuka Yu

All night | Refreshments including no-host bar

Members are invited to the Yuan Goang-Ming: Everyday War Member Preview before the Public Opening. Not a member? Join or renew today!

About the Artists and Speakers

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  Yuan Goang-Ming (b. 1965, Taipei) has been considered one of the pioneering new media artists in Taiwan since the 1990s. Yuan works across various genres, ranging from single-channel videos, computerized interactive installations, and installation-based video projections to prints created with digital media. Through these forms, he has consistently explored and unfolded new possibilities of video and media art.

   

  Yuan graduated from the National Taiwan Academy of Arts in 1989. In 1993, he was awarded the DAAD Germany Exchange Scholarship and went on to research media art at the Institute for New Media in Frankfurt, Germany. He received his master’s degree in media art from the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe in 1997.

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  Abby Chen is the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Asian Art Museum. Chen joined the museum in 2019; her leadership includes positioning the museum with strategy on acquisition, exhibition, and public engagement. In addition to curating exhibitions such as 2022’s acclaimed Kongkee: Warring States Cyberpunk, Chen has grown the museum’s contemporary acquisitions to include the nation’s largest collection of work by Bernice Bing and has initiated several touring exhibitions in America and beyond. Previously, she served for over a decade as the Curator and Artistic Director at the Chinese Culture Foundation and Center of San Francisco, transforming this community-based organization into an internationally recognized open and process-driven platform for contemporary art.

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  Summer Mei Ling Lee is a San Francisco-based artist whose work spans sculpture, video, performance, and public art. Rooted in process and collaboration, her practice explores themes of absence and presence, displacement and migration, and the impermanence of cultural heritage. Engaging with site and situation, Lee creates works that embrace listening, activism, and cross-cultural dialogue.

   

  Born and raised in the Bay Area, Lee earned her B.A. from Stanford University in 1997 and her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2011. She has exhibited and created work across the U.S., Hong Kong, China, and Europe. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Asian Art Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), and the He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen, China.

   

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  Yuka Yu hails from Taipei, Taiwan, where she grew up with the birth of the electronic music scene in Asia in the late 1990s. With a mix of Chinese, Dutch, and Japanese ancestry, Yuka has been influenced by a variety of traditions and artists including Aphex Twin and Björk. Her sets are a mix of genre-overlapping styles, creating a multicultural musical journey.

   

  Yuka began her DJ career in London, effortlessly bridging the underground to the mainstream in a male-dominated industry. She has played alongside artists like Cosmic Gate, The Crystal Method, Audien, Poolside, and Eric Prydz in premiere venues and nightclubs all over London, East Asia, and North America. In 2019, she founded the artist exchange program Nu Tekno (女樂) and has been hosting events regularly since 2020.

Top image: Dwelling, 2014, by Yuan Goang-Ming (b. Taipei, 1965). Video installation with sound; 5 min. © Yuan Goang-Ming. Courtesy of the artist.