PRAISE SHADOWS develops meaningful partnerships for the creative industry. We focus on nuanced and nimble strategic advisory for artists and artist partners. Our projects include: Marketing and Communications, Licensing, Public Art Commissions, Editorial Commissions, Strategic Partnerships, Collections and Exhibition Placement.
YNG-RU CHEN, FOUNDER
Praise Shadows Art Partners brings together experiences and contacts from Yng’s nearly 20-year career that encompasses the arts, start-up entrepreneurship, marketing and communications.
During her time at Tattly, the innovative brand that licenses art from artists, she created partnerships with the Obama White House, Art Basel, Christie’s, and many museums. She also developed official licensing programs with the National Gallery of Art in D.C., Vogue / Conde Nast, the Guerrilla Girls, Sesame Street, among others. She has held positions at MoMA P.S.1 as the Press Director, Sotheby’s as a Chinese art specialist, and was on the Asia Society’s press and marketing team during its 2001 reopening. She serves on the board of the International Curatorial and Studio Program (ISCP). Yng is an alumnus of Williams College, Duke University, and Columbia University. She is married to the journalist Devin Gordon and lives in Boston and New York City with her family.
We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates… Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.
Our name is inspired by the 1933 essay by Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows. When it came time to launch this company, with its focus on creating partnerships for artists beyond what the world has seen and already knows, this excerpt from the book stood out.
The light and the shadow, the negative and the positive space, the fine art and the commercial practice. Our mission brings forth an openness to realizing all of these moments in an artist’s career.
To learn more about Tanizaki and In Praise of Shadows, we recommend this excellent synopsis by Brain Pickings.