in 2007, yuan was awarded the "culture china person of the year award". he received the ics city beat edge "artist of the year award" in 2009. the same year, his work "sounding off 5.12 with dong feng" was included in the book "60 years of new china art interview 1949-2009", edited by the chinese art theorist shao dazhen. his artworks have been collected by the guangdong museum of art, the hubei museum of art, the arthur sackler museum of peking university, and are part of the sigg’s collection of chinese contemporary art.