Edited with introduction by Yasufumi Nakamori. Foreword by Fred Eychaner. Text by Zully Adler, Margo Machida, Mark Dean Johnson, Lydia Yee, Vivian Li, Lisa Hsiao Chen, Martin Wong.
Accompanying a major retrospective exhibition, this catalog explores Martin Wong's work and its relationship with Asian art and culture, from premodern artifacts to visions of Chinatown in New York and San Francisco
Published with Halsted A&A Foundation.
A visionary among contemporary artists from the 1970s to 1990s in the United States, Martin Wong embraced a multifaceted individualism as an Asian American queer painter and poet who freely explored and traversed ethnic and racial identities; challenged cultural, racial and ethnic stereotypes; and found creative sources through intersections of psychedelic theatre performance, calligraphy, poetry, graffiti and Asian art. Chinatown USA investigates the liminal spaces the artist occupied and traces the development of Wong's work through his connection with the arts and culture of Asia. In particular, it highlights his explorations of Chinatowns in conjunction with counterculture communities (such as Puerto Rican poets and Black and Latino graffiti artists) in New York and San Francisco. Martin Wong was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1946 and raised in San Francisco, California. He studied ceramics at Humboldt State University, graduating in 1968. In 1978 he moved to New York and exhibited for two decades at notable downtown galleries including EXIT ART, Semaphore and P·P·O·W, among others, before returning to San Francisco, where he died in 1999 from AIDS-related illness. His work is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Tate, among others.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Hyperallergic
Natalie Jenkins
Chinatowns in the United States exist in dueling realities, simultaneously serving as havens for Asian American communities and constructed exotic experiences for White tourists. These complex enclaves were a point of inspiration for Martin Wong’s practice, as explored in this sweeping exhibition at Wrightwood 659, where over 100 of his works unflinchingly tackle the many folds of Asian American lived experience.
Tai Ping Tien Kuo (Tai Ping Kuo) (1982) is reproduced from Martin Wong: Chinatown USA, the remarkable catalogue to the artist’s recent exhibition at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago. Featuring a fold-out poster cover over exposed Smythe-sewn, lay-flat binding, plus several gatefolds and paper changes, this beautifully produced volume pays a fittingly cacophonous/glamorous tribute to the artist and poet whose work explores ethnic and racial identity, queer sexuality, psychedelia, pop culture and the urban landscape. Referring to the nineteenth-century Chinese civil war the Taiping Rebellion, Tai Ping Tien Kuo (Tai Ping Kuo) precedes the majority of Wong’s Chinese-focused paintings, and uses “the artist’s forebears as the entry point to his imagining of the Chinese American community,” Margo Machida writes. “Its central panel features an ardent, albeit rather mischievous, double portrait of Wong’s entwined mother and stepfather soaring high above San Francisco’s Chinatown. Their ascending bodies are framed by the symbolic portal to Chinatown: a red ceremonial gateway (paifang) with an overhead placard displaying the legend “Tai Ping Kuo” (Country/Kingdom of Peace) in Romanized lettering.” continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 11.5 in. / 192 pgs / 175 color / 40 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $77 GBP £45.00 ISBN: 9780980024265 PUBLISHER: Gregory R. Miller & Co. AVAILABLE: 10/27/2026 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co.. Edited with introduction by Yasufumi Nakamori. Foreword by Fred Eychaner. Text by Zully Adler, Margo Machida, Mark Dean Johnson, Lydia Yee, Vivian Li, Lisa Hsiao Chen, Martin Wong.
Accompanying a major retrospective exhibition, this catalog explores Martin Wong's work and its relationship with Asian art and culture, from premodern artifacts to visions of Chinatown in New York and San Francisco
Published with Halsted A&A Foundation.
A visionary among contemporary artists from the 1970s to 1990s in the United States, Martin Wong embraced a multifaceted individualism as an Asian American queer painter and poet who freely explored and traversed ethnic and racial identities; challenged cultural, racial and ethnic stereotypes; and found creative sources through intersections of psychedelic theatre performance, calligraphy, poetry, graffiti and Asian art.
Chinatown USA investigates the liminal spaces the artist occupied and traces the development of Wong's work through his connection with the arts and culture of Asia. In particular, it highlights his explorations of Chinatowns in conjunction with counterculture communities (such as Puerto Rican poets and Black and Latino graffiti artists) in New York and San Francisco. Martin Wong was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1946 and raised in San Francisco, California. He studied ceramics at Humboldt State University, graduating in 1968. In 1978 he moved to New York and exhibited for two decades at notable downtown galleries including EXIT ART, Semaphore and P·P·O·W, among others, before returning to San Francisco, where he died in 1999 from AIDS-related illness. His work is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Tate, among others.
