Urban Alchemy

published in The Octopus, February 6, 1998 (now called The Paper)

Sweet Oblivion: The Urban Landscapes of Martin Wong

University Galleries, Illinois State University, Normal ,IL through February 22

Crossing boundaries between cultures for Martin Wong is about as easy as jumping the chain link fences he paints. A second generation Chinese-American from San Francisco, Wong doesn't fit snugly under rubrics of identity politics. Living on the Lower East Side of Manhatten during the Eighties, the artist documents a Chicano neighborhood yet to be gentrified. The images, tinged with the hopes of alchemy and astrology, skew the presentation of urban decay. Without romanticizing the decrepit infrastructures of society, his cityscapes convey a human warmth that is rather unexpected considering the subject matter. Wong can often be found in his paintings confronting or sharing our perceptions, but, either way, he directs meaning. Like a visual deejay, he mixes and scratches quotes from Miguel Pinero's poems and plays, Spanish and English, hand signs and icons, distributing his ideas to disparate audiences utilizing overlapping symbols of language, image, and sign.

All the textualizing, framing, contextualizing, reframing and recontextualizing imbued in his imagery may seem difficult to decipher, but Wong leaves traces for decoding his system of meaning. In paintings such as My Secret World (1984) , Wong incorporates previous paintings, situating them within his hotel room interior, as we gaze into his private life-the view partially obscured by a brick wall. Peeking through his windows, as if through binoculars, we gaze into the construction of some of his sign systems. Through the right window three previous paintings can be seen as paintings within a painting. As in one of the paintings on the right, the dice on the shelf show sevens. The books on the shelf range from Crossword Puzzles to Unbeatable Bruce Lee , from Electromagnatism and Antigravity to Magic and Flying Saucers . The crossword puzzles hint at word play while the Bruce Lee book suggests pop culture heroism. Electromagnatism and magic imply a tendency toward supernatural explanations. These signs have external rather than personal referents, making them accessible and readable.

Reconciling apocalyptic urban decay with the hope of redemption, Martin Wong's paintings reveal these contradictory impulses in layers of paint and semiotics. From the gold-outlined bricks of tenements to the cobalt blue skies of Chinatown, seductive colors urge viewers to look closer at a seemingly despondent cityscape resonating with vibrant life. Regardless of whether the orange sky in Sweet Oblivion (1983) glows from a tenement fire or a summer setting sun, the bricks, warm and minutely detailed, embrace the American dreams of heroin addicts: bricks and dreams mingle as they climb to the stars and tower over the wasted streets. Gold pictographic hand signs embellish a narrative of hands building brick bridges to the heavens. Hand signs for the deaf who can see invite communication to a marginalized sector and alienate those who can hear but are not listening.

Sweet Oblivion: The Urban Landscapes of Martin Wong covers a decade of work, from the cityscapes to the storefronts and the prison scenes, to the latter images of San Francisco's Chinatown. Wong intensely packs meaning into unclouded images with the skill and patience of an alchemist. The exhibition at University Galleries, closing on February 22nd, will also be shown at the New Museum in New York City.