Day 149: Martin Wong, Manhattan, New York
📌APIA Every Day (149) - Martin Wong was a Chinese American artist known for his distinctive representational imagery, which encompassed urban environments, Chinatown’s history and stereotypes, and homoerotic content. After moving to the Lower East Side of New York City in 1978, Wong settled at 141 Ridge Street in 1982, where he lived and worked. His art drew heavily from his surroundings in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where he grew up, and Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Chinatown. Wong's paintings frequently addressed the displacement of residents due to gentrification, with recurring themes of brickwork and American Sign Language.
Wong was a prominent figure in the 1980s and early 1990s downtown arts scene, forming friendships with artists such as David Wojnarowicz and Keith Haring. His significant collaboration with Miguel Piñero, a writer and co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, influenced his connection to the Puerto Rican community in the Lower East Side. Wong and Piñero collaborated on several artistic projects and briefly lived together. Wong’s notable painting "Attorney Street (Handball Court with Autobiographical Poem by Piñero)" reflects this period and was later acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In addition to his paintings, Wong was an early collector of graffiti art, amassing a substantial collection of graffiti works and publications throughout the 1980s. In 1989, he co-founded the Museum of American Graffiti in the East Village, though it was short-lived. Diagnosed with AIDS, Wong returned to San Francisco in 1994 to be with his parents and subsequently donated his graffiti collection to the Museum of the City of New York. Wong passed away in 1999 at the age of 53. His work is held in major New York institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New-York Historical Society. His legacy has been honored with retrospectives at the New Museum in 1998 and the Bronx Museum in 2015.
LEARN MORE:
NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project: Martin Wong Residence & Studio
GLBTQ: Wong, Martin (1946-1999)
Art in America: “Everything Must Go”: Martin Wong on His Turf
The Martin Wong Foundation: Martin Wong
#apiaeveryday #chinese #chineseamericanartist #chineseamericanhistory #manhattan #newyork #chinatown #attorneystreet #queerasianhistory #lgbt #pridemonth #metropolitanmuseumofart #whitneymuseum #museumofmodernart #newyorkhistoricsociety #newmuseum #bronxmuseum #museumofamericangraffiti
