Five Minutes with Noémie Bonnet

Noémie Bonnet is the newly appointed Executive Director of Asia Week New York and the creative aficionado behind the outreach of the week’s programming, which she was happy to elaborate upon during our brief chat.

Artsy: You were recently brought on as the Executive Director of Asia week. How do you plan to broaden the reach of the week’s festivities?

Noémie Bonnet: Our big push right now is to develop our digital, marketing and development strategies, and this will no doubt have positive repercussions on the extent of our outreach. Our focus is also on finding ways to better serve our audience, and to improve the experience for visitors so that they can easily navigate our roster of events. One major milestone this year was the launch of our new website, which was built in order to appeal to all generations in terms of user experience—it's visual, intuitive, and simple to navigate. This past month, the Chinese version of the site went live, which will without a doubt broaden our reach to an even larger audience in Asia.

Artsy: Can you tell us about some of the exciting events taking place for Asia Week?

NB: We are especially thrilled this year with our dealer participation—totaling 43, our largest number to date. They bring unprecedented, museum-quality exhibitions into the public eye. This year, we were also thrilled to hold our opening reception at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, with their incredible Gutai exhibition on view. We strive to shine a light on a different cultural institution each year, and starting with last year (when our opening reception was held at the Morgan Library and Museum), we've appreciated the opportunity to hold our reception in locations that do not necessarily specialize in Asian art exclusively—the message being that Asian art is world art.

Artsy: Can you describe the visual identity of this year’s Asia Week, and how the program’s representation may be expanding within the NYC community?

NB: Alongside all of our digital marketing efforts, we are hitting the streets as well! This year's visual identity continues to feature our iconic, bright saffron yellow, which matches New York City's taxi-filled cityscape perfectly—something you are sure not to miss if you walk through midtown and the Upper East Side, where our street banners and sidewalk decals (a first this year) indicate exhibition locations during Asia Week New York.

Noémie Bonnet is an experienced consultant for various institutions, companies and non-profit organizations. Following full-time tenures in program management at the Art Directors Club and business development at Internet Week NY, she has collaborated on a consulting basis with the French-American Foundation, TED, YouTube, Chapin School, Moleskine and the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., to name a few.

Yoshihara Jirō, Circle, 1971.Oil on canvas, 182 x 182 cm, The Miyagi Prefectural Museum of Art, Sendai, Japan ©  Yoshihara Shinichirō, courtesy The Miyagi Prefectural Museum of Art; MOTONAGA Sadamasa, Work (Water), 1956, Polyethylene, water, dye, and rope, dimensions variable. Installation view: Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition, Ashiya Park, Ashiya, July 27-August 5, 1956 © Motonaga Nakatsuji Etsuko, courtesy Motonaga Document Research Office.