The Chinese multimedia artist, who has won the award out of six finalists, tells Tatler how he explores history and its diverse narratives through his work
Wang Tuo draws from important historical episodes to make sense of the environment he navigates today, and presents his findings through classical media such as paintings, but he has become better known for his video work and films. This has been a consistent framework for his practice, through which he often unearths information and perspectives which may have been lost in time and omitted by history.
It was this approach that, in large part, led to the multimedia artist, originally from Changchun in Northeast China, being named the winner of this year’s Sigg Prize, a biennial award established by Hong Kong’s M+ museum of visual art that celebrates outstanding artistic practices from the Greater China region and its diaspora.
The selection committee, chaired by M+ director Suhanya Raffel, cites contributing factors in granting the Beijing-based artist the prize. It was Wang’s “impressive production value which creates sophisticated imagery layered with rich cultural references, from classical literature to folklore and ethnic languages” and his ability to recognise and “address parallels in human history across time periods, prompting viewers to reflect on our contemporary situation and the future.”
These qualities are evident in Wang’s film project Northeast Tetralogy (2018-21), which is currently on view at M+ as part of the exhibition, alongside the works of the other five nominated artists. “The series blends historical events and speculative narratives to offer deep contemplation on the relationship between archive and fiction, demonstrating a pertinent and timely inquiry into the record and interpretation of history in this region and beyond,” the selection committee said in a statement on the exhibition.
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Tatler spoke to the artist before the announcement during a secret trip to Hong Kong—he wasn’t allowed to disclose that he was the winner and didn’t want to raise suspicion among friends. “It’s nice to win,” says Wang, “but after this it’s back to being on my solitary journey as an artist.”
Wang’s artistic journey began a little later than most. Art wasn’t always the plan: he graduated with a degree in biology and worked in an environmental engineering lab, opting to do a science degree because “everyone else was doing it” and it “guaranteed a stable income and good career”. But eventually he gave into an impulse: “I had this basic urge to make a choice to devote [my] life to something I really love.” Through art he could explore his interests and skills in a more creative manner. “I love all kinds of art forms—music, theatre, visual arts; and even my background—my education in science—helps.”
Perhaps due to his unconventional beginning in the field, his fascination with art and artists became a subject of his early work, something that persists to this day. In 2015, he created the performance piece A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which used humour and irony to explore an artist’s role in society through the lens of an outsider. In this piece, an artist trains an outsider to stage a supposedly spontaneous performance art piece, replete with all the clichés associated with the medium, only for the audience to realise how contrived and premeditated it is. Whether through performance art or any other medium, at the root of Wang’s inquisition is a comment on how society functions in all its complexity.
The multiplicity of his interests is further mirrored in the varying media he works in, and the way he finds different purposes for each. “Painting is powerful—it’s a direct representation of emotion—but I found different subject matters require different mediums,” says Wang. “Films provide for the possibility of multiple narratives, with more layers to show how things are entangled together.”
The series was inspired by Wang’s return to China after studying in the United States for four years. “I needed to remove the distance,” says Wang on his time in the US, during which he had to observe China from afar. “It’s an easy decision to make art about universal topics [which he was doing in the US] but I want to make art especially about home. I can only really make art about what I care to know and what haunts me.”