Ming Wong

Ming Wong is a Singaporean contemporary artist who lives and works in Berlin, known for his re-interpretations of iconic films and performances from world cinema in his video installations, often featuring "miscastings" of himself in roles of varied identities.

In 2009, at the Singapore Pavilion of the 53rd Venice Biennale, Wong represented Singapore with the body of work, Life of Imitation, for which he was awarded the Special Mention (Expanding Worlds) during the Biennale's Opening Ceremony, the first time a Singaporean artist would receive an award at the Venice Biennale.

Wong is currently a Professor in Performance in the Expanded Field at Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm.

Education and personal life From 1992, he was trained in Chinese calligraphy at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore, obtaining his Diploma in Fine Arts (Chinese Art) in 1995. In the late-1990s, Ming Wong began work in theatre, later leaving for London to study at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London from 1997 to 1999, where he obtained his Master of Fine Arts (Fine Art Media).

Life of Imitation at the Venice Biennale 2009 Wong would eventually be selected to represent Singapore for the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. The palazzo was made to echo a cinema, with billboards by cinema billboard painter Neo Chon Teck 'advertising' the three featured video installations: Four Malay Stories (2005); In Love for the Mood (2009); and Life of Imitation (2009), alongside invited artworks by cine-memorabilia collector Wong Han Min, and filmmaker Sherman Ong. In 2012, Wong would participate in the Liverpool Biennial, UK, and the Toronto International Film Festival, Canada with his project Making Chinatown, which was first shown at his solo exhibition Ming Wong: Making Chinatown at the REDCAT in Los Angeles, USA the same year. Wong would hold a solo exhibition, Next Year, at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing in 2015. In 2019, the show travelled to Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Thailand as Spectrosynthesis II, the largest show of LGBTQ art from Southeast Asia, and Wong performed in drag for Land of a Thousand Rainbows, a performance commissioned for the exhibition's opening.

In 2018, he would show at a guest exhibition as part of DAK’ART 2018 Dakar Biennale, Senegal, curated by Cosmin Costinas and Inti Guerrero, produced by Para Site, also showing new work at the Busan Biennale, curated by Jörg Heiser and Cristina Ricupero, the same year. Dubbed as a form of "pla(y)giarism" by writer Kathy Acker, Wong often plays all the roles, male and female, as a means of re-examining the Western cinematic canon as a queer Asian man. Wong's poor command of the Malay language is foregrounded, with the artist attempting his lines several times in repeated takes of the same scene. Edited to simulate being shot on black-and-white film stock, the subtitles show a transcription of the artist's lines in Malay, alongside a literal English translation. The "foreign presence" of Wong within these films re-examine the nation's narratives of multiculturalism, highlighting the stereotypes and cinematic tropes in the history of Singapore's national cinema. The work further evokes the loss of Singapore's cinema heritage through its references to the golden era of the Malay film industry from the 1950s to 1960s, also highlighting the shifting politics of language in Singapore.

Four Malay Stories was later re-presented during Wong's Life of Imitation exhibition at the Singapore Pavilion in Venice Biennale 2009. Achievements

Awards At the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, Wong was awarded the Special Mention (Expanding Worlds), the first time Singapore received an award at the art biennale. Later in 2012, Wong would be conferred the Award of the Distinguished Alumni Medal from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore, 2012, and in 2014, Wong was awarded the Federal State of Berlin government grant for artists.

Residencies and Fellowships From 2003 to 2005, Wong was conferred the Pearson Creative Research Fellowship at the British Library, UK. He was awarded the Fire Station Residency and Bursary by ACME Studios, UK in 2005, and he was artist-in-residence at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Germany from 2007 to 2008.