{"id":679056,"date":"2026-05-19T05:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T05:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/679056\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T05:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T05:58:12","slug":"martin-wongs-brick-monument-to-popeye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/679056\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Wong\u2019s Brick Monument to Popeye"},"content":{"rendered":"

Art Review<\/a><\/p>\n

He repurposed bygone cartoon characters and gave them new life with a queer, magpie sensibility, which still pops two decades after his death.<\/p>\n


\n \"Brian
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"Martin
\n Martin Wong, “Oy! (Veh)” (1991), acrylic on plywood (all photos Brian Karl\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n

Like a slo-mo Off-Off-Broadway chorus line or targets in a shooting gallery, six painted, heavy, jigsaw-cut plywood panels riffing on the cartoon character Popeye sway an understated dance number, small motors whirring gently behind. In this posthumous exhibition<\/a> at PPOW, artist Martin Wong\u2019s strange, hybrid take on the classic cultural icon metamorphoses Popeye into architectural forms as much as humanoid figures, painted as curving brickwork, variously weathered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a kind of sociable quality to Wong\u2019s retakes that softens both the brick and the insistent phallic exaggerations he makes of Popeye\u2019s bulbousness. In Wong\u2019s hands, Popeye\u2019s hammy palms, nose, elbows, and even oversized earlobes protrude assertively priapic. And there\u2019s a logic to this \u201cin-the-navy\u201d queering of the macho sailor man, whose supposed trysting with dame Olive Oyl is always interrupted by the homophiliac eros of Bluto, his perennial male nemesis.<\/p>\n

\"\"Installation view of Martin Wong: Popeye at PPOW<\/p>\n

This is, in short, a show about transmutation: goofy soft \u201cflesh\u201d into something firmer, the ephemera of pop culture into a more idiosyncratic celebration of fanfic re-animation. Queer and magpie in sensibility, Wong imaginatively repurposed anachronistic cultural products and images. Over two decades after his death, the artist\u2019s sensibility still \u201cpops.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several smaller paintings in the show demonstrate Wong\u2019s fascination with other pop culture vernaculars. Among his tattoo paintings is the hexagon-shaped \u201cSacred Shroud of Pepe Turcel\u201d (1989\u201390), a muscle-shirted male torso seen from behind. Closer to his Popeye stylings, two larger works showcase Wong\u2019s ability to cross cultural boundaries, including between the false dichotomy of \u201chigh\u201d and \u201clow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Martin Wong, “The Most Beautiful Painting in the World” (1989), acrylic on canvas<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Most Beautiful Painting in the World\u201d (1989) features vintage cartoon characters Mutt and Jeff, whom the artist depicts \u2014 again, all in brick, seated at a brick table \u2014 kicking back, playing cards and drinking beer, the painting\u2019s title rendered in Chinese script above Wong\u2019s name hand-lettered in English. A thin line of gold pseudo-ornately outlines the scene, as if decorating Chinese enamelware. In a striking mashup, Wong inserts an infinity mirror cascade of brick \u201cKilroy was here\u201d characters peeking in from another dimension.<\/p>\n

In one of the most architectural of Wong\u2019s brick cartoon humans, another vintage couple appears as anthropomorphized castle turrets in \u201cUntitled (Little Lulu and Tubby)\u201d (circa 1989), fragments of thought and voice bubbles emanating from each statuary character. Meanwhile, a host of dead-eyed bunnies and skulls stare out from behind the figures\u2019 crenellations.<\/p>\n

\"\"Martin Wong, \u201cUntitled (Little Lulu and Tubby)\u201d (c. 1989), acrylic on canvas<\/p>\n

The bunny and skull lineup recurs in Wong\u2019s work, channeling an awareness of mortality central to the Buddhist beliefs from which he often drew inspiration. As ever for the artist, these aren\u2019t party dampeners but further enlivening guests, decorations, or party favors \u2014 the death that always hovers near, a reminder that there is further life beyond loss.<\/p>\n

But why brick? Wong\u2019s long-term penchant for brickwork illustration in his paintings traces to his interest in the thrilling, rough-hewn urban scene of decaying 1970s downtown Manhattan, where he lived and worked<\/a>. Brick was the skin of Wong\u2019s world. The extension of this material to his commandeered cartoon characters monumentalizes them, pulling the throw-away funnies out of waste bins to make them more epic and permanent, elevating not only the power of pop culture\u2019s storytelling but what individual creative imagination can make of it.<\/p>\n

Martin Wong: Popeye<\/a> continues at PPOW (392 Broadway, Tribeca, Manhattan) through May 30. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Art Review He repurposed bygone cartoon characters and gave them new life with a queer, magpie sensibility, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-679056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}