Ming Yuan (b. 1997, Chengdu) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Frankfurt am Main, whose work spans wood, oil paint, ceramics, sound, and text. Her practice explores the intersections of materiality and morality, investigating how ethical frameworks shape aesthetic experience. Through an ongoing engagement with themes of diaspora, femininity, and social power dynamics, Yuan’s work interrogates notions of belonging, intimacy, and identity within contemporary human conditions.

Yuan holds a deep dialectical interest in the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, a tension that informs much of her artistic inquiry. Her work reflects on these power structures through a lens of historical materialism, considering how visual and sonic forms mediate class hierarchies and social relations. This interest extends beyond studio practice into daily reading and essay writing, which serve as critical components of her creative process, grounding her explorations in theory and discourse.

Currently, Yuan is examining romantic and communal ethics, focusing on acts such as gift-giving, property-sharing, and the implicit obligations they entail. These inquiries influence her experiments with iconography, portraiture, and symbolism, highlighting the fluidity of meaning and shifting power dynamics embedded within these forms. Her work also addresses the tension between ornamentation and minimalism, reconfiguring traditional hierarchies between image and frame to enable a migration of meaning across media and context.

Inspired by religious rituals, folk mythology and personal narratives, Yuan’s practice draws connections between ancient customs and contemporary struggles. Through the juxtaposition of restraint and excess, freedom and structure, her work creates spaces of contradiction, where cognitive and emotional migrations offer new ways of understanding class, identity, and ethics.



︎ mingmingyuan@yahoo.com


Education2024-2025, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Sculpture Charlottenborg, Professor Simon Dybbroe Møller, Copenhagen, DK
2020-2025, Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule, Professor Hassan Khan, DE
2018-2019, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, NL2015-2019, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, DE

Solo shows
11.2024-01.2025, Intermezzo, Galerie Perpetuel, Frankfurt am Main, DE
11.2023-12.2023, Ethereal Dissonance, Aspiration Unboun Saasfee Pavillon, Frankfurt am Main, DE
03.2023-07.2023, A Sanctury of Blatant Female Frippery Rear Window Berlin by HUA International, Berlin, DE 
10.2022-12.2022, Moaning of my Needles, PLATESPACE, Beijing, CN
07-12.05.2022, The Perfect Smile: Six Teeth Shown, fffriedrich, Frankfurt am Main, DE

Group Shows
11.2024, Dippers, Q, Copenhagen, DK
31.10.2023, Mckinsy, Frankfurt am Main, DE
10.02.2024 Watercooler Talks, Frankfurt am Main, DE
28.10.2023, ‘Thank You!!’, Pickle Bar by Slaves and Tartar, Berlin, DE
03-05.02.2023, Wir Müssen Noch DVDs Abgeben, Zentrale, Berlin, DE
19.11.2022, Little Virgil Issue 6 Realease, BLÅGÅRDSGADE 29A, 2200 KBH N, Copenhagen, DK
4pm 03.09 - 4am 05.09.2022 Thorn Apple Project II, Until You Reveal, We Continue the Game, Curated by Li Yi, Leipziger str. 58, Berlin, DE
07.2022, Soundarc, by Mahya Ketabchi and Hoongang Dong, Gasthof Staedelschule, Frankfurt am Main, DE
06.2022, Communion, curated by Tornike Gognadze, Frankfurt am Main, DE
31.03.2022, Video Show at Hauptwache Ubahn, Frankfurt am Main, DE
14-16.05.2021, Autonatura, 50.1320N, 8.6023 E, DE

Performance09.06.2024, June Listening, Radio X broadcast, Frankfurt am Main, DE
03.06.2024, Austerity, Tea, Ritual, Listening Session, Frankfurt am Main, DE
10.02.2024, Dripsody, Water Cooler Talks, Frankfurt am Main, DE

Publication
Moaning of my Needles, Communion II, 2024
Heisse Luft, Selected Models, 2024, Tea, Minimalism and the Divine Gaze
Staedlschule Portfolio Edition IV, 2023 link
Ashtray Journal, Issue 1, 2021

Funding and Prize
Frankfurt Kulturamt Funding
Mckinsey Prize 2023
Digiprax Funding
Hessische Kultur Stiftung
Kulturförderung Stadt Frankfurt am Main

Articles and Links https://passe-avant.net/interviews/ethereal-dissonance-aspiration-unbound
https://staedelschule.de/de/board/listening-session
https://staedelschule.de/de/board/fresh-fabrik-heisse-luft
https://staedelschule.de/de/calendar/water-cooler-talks-2024
https://staedelschule.de/de/support/editions/portfolio-iii-von-studierenden-1
https://www.fr.de/frankfurt/frankfurter-staedelschule-laedt-zum-rundgang-kunst-mit-kick-92081419.html
https://www.pw-magazine.com/2022/impressions-of-staedelschule-rundgang-2022/
https://kubaparis.com/the-perfect-smile-six-teeth-shown/
https://fffriedrich.de/THE-PERFECT-SMILE