VALS Visiting Artist Lecture Series with Yu-Wen Wu

Join us for an exciting evening as we welcome Yu-Wen Wu to the VALS Visiting Artist Lecture Series at Dock 72 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Hosted by our Fine Arts MFA program, VALS is one of several free and open-to-the-public events we offer each year. Follow us on Instagram @prattfineart to see what’s coming up, and we look forward to welcoming you soon!

Yu-Wen Wu’s work lies at the interconnections of art, science, social, and cultural issues and the natural world. Themes in her work include time, transformation, global migration, and storytelling. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, her experiences as an immigrant are central to her artwork creating an intersection of personal narrative and global discourse. In migration, multi-layered transcultural identities develop associating place, cultural practices and what it means to belong. She uses materials as metaphors to express emotions, memories, and the multifaceted experience of the diaspora. Recent bodies of work engage materials associated with her Asian heritage such as tea, porcelain, and gold. She often uses organic materials reflecting on our relationship with the natural world and our environment. Her diverse body of work includes drawing, sculpture, site-specific video installations, community-engaged practices, and public art.

Wu recently installed the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Facade (Boston) where she was the 2024 artist-in-residence and was a 2023 recipient of the James and Audrey Foster Prize at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston. Her work has been featured at Taipei Dangdai, James Cohan Gallery New York and Praise Shadows Art Gallery in Brookline, MA.

She has received prominent public art commissions, including Lantern Stories (2020 and 2022) commissioned by the Greenway Conservancy, Lantern Stories San Francisco (2022). Institutional collections include Boston Public Library, Harvard Art Museums, ICA/Boston, MIT List Visual Art Center, Princeton University Art Museum. Her shows have been reviewed in New York Magazine, Boston Globe, Artnet News, BOMB Magazine, and Bloomberg Businessweek, among others.

Previous VALS artists include: Diana Al-Hadid, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Izzy Barber, Judith Bernstein, Michael Berryhill, Wafaa Bilal, The Black School, Flaviu Cacoveanu, Pradeep Dalal, Abigail D. Deville, Nicole Eisenman, Florencia Escudero, Rochelle Feinstein, Keltie Ferris, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Scherezade García, Rico Gatson, Jeffrey Gibson, Mark Thomas Gibson, Nancy Grossman, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Edgar Heap of Birds, James Hyde, Laura Kalman, Lotus Kang, Nina Katchadourian, Elektra KB, eri king, Baseera Khan, Savannah Knoop, Leigh Ledare, Jennie Jieun Lee, Ann Lewis, Tau Lewis, Kalup Linzey, Ibrahim Mahama, Park McArthur, Alicia Mersy, Wardell Milan, Ayanah Moor, Lavar Munroe, Narcissister, Rashaad Newsome, Catherine Opie, Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, Alexis Rockman, Aura Satz, Shazia Sikander, Lorna Simpson, Nyugen E. Smith, Wendy Red Star, Brigitta Váradi, Dan Walsh, Hu Xiangqian, and Frank Wang Yefen.

We are grateful to the Robert Lehman Foundation for supporting this series.

This event is open to the public.