Frieze NY 2026

Yeni Mao

Booth F09

The Shed

May 13 - 17, 2026

Sargent’s Daughters proposes a solo booth of new sculptures by Yeni Mao (b. 1971 Canada), a Chinese-American sculptor based in Mexico City, marking his first solo fair presentation. Mao creates assemblages and architectonic arrangements that explore fragmentation, mythology, and his personal identities as a queer person and a member of the Chinese diaspora. Using steel, ceramic, and leather as raw materials, Mao constructs the works himself, drawing on techniques learned in foundries and architectural trades. The works imply abstracted, unraveled bodies; cyborg constructions of found and sculpted components. His works are coded with references to subcultures, countercultures, and outsiders, from casts of cow tongues, to rows of spikes, to bondage-like leather straps. Presented in a low-lit booth with dramatic spot lighting, the works emerge as actors on a stage, and their constituent parts shine in the light and cast shadows on the floor. Minimal wall and floor treatments focus attention on the materiality of the sculptures. Rigging may be needed to suspend one work from a truss. As a viewer enters the space, the anatomy of their body is equated with Mao’s built systems, suggesting that the construction and deconstruction of our identities and selves are also fabrications.

Yeni Mao (b. 1971 Guelph, Canada) is a Chinese-American sculptor based in Mexico City. He received a BFAfrom The School of Art Institute of Chicago, and subsequently trained in foundry work and architectural industries in the US. Recent solo exhibitions include Campeche (Mexico City, MX), Brooke Benington (London, UK), Frieze Focus with Make Room (Los Angeles, CA), guadalajara90210 (Guadalajara, MX). Recent group shows include Museo Tamayo and Sargent’s Daughters. Mao is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant 2021. Mao’s work has been written about in Art in America, The New York Times, Time Out New York, and The Village Voice.