Martin Wong: Human Instamatic

September 20–December 10, 2017

This retrospective surveys the career of "one of our great urban visionaries" (New York Times), from Northern California to New York and back.

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Martin Wong: Brainwashing Cult Cons Top TV Star, 1981; acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40 in.; the Bronx Museum of the Arts, gift of JP Morgan Chase.
Martin Wong: Sweet ’Enuff, 1987; acrylic on canvas, two panels; 69 3/4 x 64 1/2 and 72 x 62 1/2 in.; collection of the de Young Museum, San Francisco; gift of Judy and Michael Moe.

Upcoming
Films
Upcoming
Events
Selected
Objects
Past
Films
Past
Events

Past Events

Selected Sundays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays
Guided Tours: Martin Wong

Join a tour of Martin Wong: Human Instamatic and discover the work of a painter the New York Times called “one of our great urban visionaries.”

BAMPFA
Saturday, December 9, 3:30 PM
Gallery Talk by David Call: Martin Wong and ASL

Artist Call shares insights into the distinctive presence of American Sign Language in Martin Wong’s work.

BAMPFA
Saturday, November 11, 1 PM
Roundtable Discussion: Martin Wong in New York

Follow Martin Wong from the Bay Area to New York City’s Lower East Side in this discussion with Sean Corcoran, Yasmin Ramirez, Barry Blinderman, and Jane Dickson.

BAMPFA
Saturday, November 11, 11:30–1:00 & 1:00–2:30
Gallery + Studio: Explore ASL in Collage

See how Martin Wong used American Sign Language in his paintings, then learn about this compelling visual language as you create your own art.

BAMPFA

For ages 6 to 12 with accompanying adult(s)
Saturday, October 7, 1 PM
Roundtable Discussion: Martin Wong in San Francisco

This program explores both the formative and the final years of Martin Wong, who began and ended his career in California. With Mark Dean Johnson, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Sergio Bessa, Marci Kwon, and Charlie Ahearn.

BAMPFA
Thursday, September 21, 1 PM
Curator’s Talk: Constance Lewallen on Martin Wong

Lewallen discusses the life and work of Martin Wong—his identity, his milieu, and his passions.

BAMPFA

Past Films

Martin Wong: Human Instamatic

September 20–December 10, 2017

This exhibition surveys the career of Chinese American painter Martin Wong (1946–1999), from his early years painting street portraits in Northern California—where he dubbed himself the “Human Instamatic”—to his role in New York’s gritty downtown art scene in the 1970s and 1980s and his late work in San Francisco before his untimely death from AIDS.

Wong was born in Portland, Oregon, and grew up near San Francisco’s Chinatown. After a year at UC Berkeley, he studied ceramics at Humboldt State University in Eureka. During the 1970s, dividing his time between Eureka and San Francisco, he made scroll poems in idiosyncratic calligraphy and designed sets for psychedelic experimental theater groups the Cockettes and Angels of Light.

Wong’s work changed and blossomed after he moved to New York in 1978. While living openly as a gay man on the Lower East Side, then a poor immigrant neighborhood with a large Latino population, he quickly became part of a burgeoning arts scene. He formed a close relationship with Puerto Rican writer Miguel Piñero, with whom he sometimes collaborated, and befriended several young graffiti artists, collecting their work and eventually donating it to the Museum of the City of New York. During his New York years Wong made paintings of his environment—brick buildings, storefronts, interiors—as well as depictions of prison life and firemen, for whom he had an erotic fascination. Often, he added sign language pictograms and headlines from the sensationalist tabloid Weekly World News. His highly distinctive style, which combines obsessive attention to detail with fantastical elements, has been described as visionary realism.

In 1994 Wong contracted AIDS and returned to his family in San Francisco; he was cared for by his mother, with whom he shared a passion for collecting everything from fine art to souvenir trinkets. He continued to paint and, in a stylistic departure, made highly detailed studies of exotic cacti in his mother’s garden.

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Martin Wong: Human Instamatic is organized by The Bronx Museum of the Arts and curated by Antonio Sergio Bessa, director of curatorial and education programs, and Yasmin Ramírez, adjunct curator. The exhibition is supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Henry Luce Foundation, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Eric Diefenbach and JK Brown, Florence Wong Fie and the Martin Wong Foundation, Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, P.P.O.W Gallery, and other individuals. Archival materials courtesy of The Estate of Martin Wong / P.P.O.W Gallery and Fales Library of New York University.

The BAMPFA presentation is organized by Constance M. Lewallen, adjunct curator, with additional support provided by Florence Wong Fie and the Martin Wong Foundation, the Chu Collection 譽婷堂, KAWS, and Alan and Yenn Lo.

Supporter

Henry Luce Foundation
Supporter

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Martin Wong: Human Instamatic

September 20–December 10, 2017

Selected Exhibition Objects

Painting

Brainwashing Cult Cons Top TV Stars

Martin Wong United States

Painting

Silence

Martin Wong United States

Painting

Starry Night

Martin Wong United States

Painting

The Annunciation According to Mikey Piñero (Cupcake and Paco)

Martin Wong United States

Painting

Sweet 'Enuff

Martin Wong

Painting

Big Heat

Martin Wong United States

Painting

Rapture

Martin Wong United States

Painting

Lamps of China

Martin Wong United States

Painting

Self-Portrait

Martin Wong United States

Past Events

Guided Tours: Martin Wong

Gallery Talk by David Call: Martin Wong and ASL

Roundtable Discussion: Martin Wong in New York

Gallery + Studio: Explore ASL in Collage

Roundtable Discussion: Martin Wong in San Francisco

Curator’s Talk: Constance Lewallen on Martin Wong

Past Films

Martin Wong
United States

Martin Wong
United States

Martin Wong
United States

Martin Wong
United States

Martin Wong
United States

Martin Wong
United States

Martin Wong
United States

Martin Wong
United States