Raised in San Francisco’s Chinatown, visual artist Martin Wong (1946–1999) deserves to be far better known. The handsome catalogue of a major exhibition at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago, which closed July 18, will undoubtedly bring more attention to the prolific queer Chinese American artist. “Martin Wong: Chinatown USA” is the first U.S. monographic museum exhibition of his works since 2017.
Wong came of age in the Bay Area during the countercultural 1960s and ’70s. Relocating to New York City in 1978, he soon began exhibiting widely, quickly becoming a leading figure of the 1980s downtown arts scene. There he became interested in Puerto Rican poets and Black and Latino graffiti artists, and American Sign Language. After being diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, Wong returned to San Francisco in 1994 where he died at age 53 in 1999.
This beautifully produced 220-page volume is replete with reproductions of paintings, drawings, ceramic sculpture and photographs by and of Wong, as well as images contextualizing his inspirations. His idiosyncratic work depicts –realistically and fantastically– elements of his environment and influences, including architecture, cultural icon Bruce Lee and Peking opera performer Mei Lanfang,
Even after his move to New York, Wong vividly evoked San Francisco in his paintings Chinese New Year Parade, Lamps of China, Chinese Telephone Exchange and Grant Avenue, San Francisco. The juxtaposition of the similarities and differences of New York’s and San Francisco’s Chinatowns reverberates throughout. With its vibrant color, whimsical imagery, and pointed political allusions, Wong’s work is unique amongst his peers.
Illuminating
The catalog’s text is equally illuminating, with astute essays by scholars Solomon Adler, Lisa Hsiao Chen, Mark D. Johnson, Vivian Li, Margo Machida, and Lydia Yee. Several gatefold pages, an index, selected bibliography, and selected (but extensive) exhibition history make this an indispensable resource certain to enhance Wong’s important legacy. His 1993 P·P·O·W exhibition “Chinatown USA” supplies the title for this catalog.
Fred Eychaner’s brief foreword reminds readers that Wong’s work was featured in Wrightwood 659’s major 2019 exhibition, “About Face: Stonewall, Revolt and New Queer Art.” Wong, a self-described Chino-Latino, “described feeling as though he were the only Chinese gay kid in existence, and his sense of isolation, his ‘otherness,’ and his diagnosis at a time when so many were dying can be felt deeply in his work.”
Margo Machida’s essay, “Martin Wong: Visual Dialogues with Chinese Modernity” emphasizes that “Wong’s ancestral and cultural ties were a sustaining source of pride and a catalyst for artistic exploration, yet his relationship to his Chinese background could be equivocal.
Having grown up in an Americanized household in San Francisco’s North Beach Little Italy neighborhood –near but not in Chinatown– and being unable to speak or read the language contributed to a sense of disjunction or remove. Nonetheless, the artist adamantly asserted his claim to a Chinese heritage on whatever terms he chose and the broad scope of his subject matter points to his syncretic embrace of simultaneous influences from multiple cultures and urban milieus.”
Resisting conformity
As a young artist who resisted conforming to the “model minority” stereotype, Wong worked for several years with the 1970’s radical gender fluid performance collective, the Angels of Light Free Theater in San Francisco, where he designed props, sets, and costumes, as well as acting as its documentarian.
One of his first costume designs was a glittered peacock tail worn by founder, Hibiscus, in the show, “Myth Thing” at the San Francisco Poet’s Theater in 1972. The following year, he painted a stage set for “Allah Mode or Chained to the Subculture.”
Deborah “Beaver” Bauer describes Wong’s place in the troupe: “We were group-oriented, but he was his own entity within the group. I think he loved the Angels because through us he could work out the fantasy of the wild part of him, which he wanted, without fully committing himself to it. And I think the group was probably also a vehicle for him to come out, or to be more explorative with his sexuality.”
In 1991, he was invited by the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) as a guest lecturer to speak about his artistic process and Lower East Side influences. And in 1993, Wong returned to SFAI for his solo show, “Chinatown Paintings” (also known as “Chinatown U.S.A.”) as well as serving as a visiting artist, where he directly engaged with the students.
Much of Wong’s work can be seen at the Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné, a free digital resource accessible online, a collaboration between Stanford Libraries, the Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI) and the Martin Wong Foundation.
Because the importance of this timely exhibition and its handsome publication must be reinforced, the magnificent volume ends with curator and catalog editor Yasufumi Nakamori’s strong words:
“The United States’ current political environment, with the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion under attack, makes this a critical time to show the art of Martin Wong. When there is no safety for queer youth of color, the artist’s work offers a space where differences in race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, creed and religion are not only respected but celebrated. Yet showing the work of queer artists of color engaging with their diasporic communities has become a non-priority to many art museums. Wrightwood 659 in Chicago had the courage to take on this urgent task.”
‘Martin Wong: Chinatown USA,’ Chicago: Wrightwood 659, book published by Gregory R. Miller & Co. $55, publication date August 11, 2026