Artist Wong Ping, who is Hong Kong's only representative at the upcoming New Museum Triennial in New York, introduces the work he'll unveil at the exhibition
At first glance, Wong Ping’s neon-hued animations seem bright and breezy. Comic characters have amusingly distorted features, they all wear outrageous clothes (if any) and the psychedelic backgrounds pulse with the colours of the rainbow. But after a few seconds of contemplation, it becomes clear that all is not as it seems.
Tackling topics such as the pressures of big-city life and the trials and tribulations of modern relationships, Wong’s videos offer a darkly humorous look into contemporary society.
In one, a teenage boy becomes obsessed with a woman who has breasts on her back. In another, the protagonist’s wife starts to work as a prostitute out of their shared home, partly because her husband can’t satisfy her.
For his next video, which will be exhibited at the New Museum Triennial in New York in February, Wong has turned to traditional fairy tales for inspiration. “Did you know that the original fairy tales are quite scary? Stories written by the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen have been adapted by Disney, but the originals are quite dark,” Wong says.
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