Artist Martin Wong was a magnetic figure in 1980s downtown New York: Chinese-American, openly gay, generous, and wildly creative. This documentary tells the story of the crucial role he played in graffiti art’s emergence from the underground by investigating a hidden painting on the back of one of his major works. Weaving archival footage with new interviews with Wong’s close friends, collaborators, conservators, and historians, this film is also a portrait of the city he loved at a pivotal moment when creative liberation, gentrification, new subcultures, and the rise of the AIDS epidemic were colliding.
Wong was an extraordinary figure who is only now gaining worldwide recognition for his work, which, as MoMA curator Michelle Kuo says, is “in the same constellation as Keith Haring’s or Jean-Michel Basquiat’s: art that was often both for and about public space, the street.” His tragic death at just 53 from AIDS related illness cut his career short at its creative peak. In this film, graffiti artist Aaron “Sharp” Goodstone and filmmaker Charlie Ahearn (WILD STYLE) share personal memories of Wong and speak about the impact of his friendship and art. “His work was an aspect of New York archival history,” Sharp explains, “because some of those buildings are gone. So it’s like a portrait of the city that doesn’t exist.”
This video required extensive archival research in Martin Wong's papers at Fales Library at NYU, seeking out and interviewing Martin Wong's collaborators and contemporaries Aaron "Sharp" Goodstone and Charlie Ahearn, licensing the use of Ahearn's invaluable video documentation of Martin Wong, scenes from his film WILD STYLE, and filming over a two-year period while the
Houston Street painting was being treated and studied in the conservation lab and the new stretcher was being made. Our research and interview with Sharp uncovered the two missing panels that originally flanked the painting. We distributed this video on our YouTube channel, on moma.org, and with excerpts shared in Instagram posts.
The YouTube video had outstanding engagement. Since it published, it has received 1.9M impressions, 140.6K views, gained 1.6K subscribers, and received 183 comments (very high for typical comments per video on our channel). Our first Instagram post focused on conservation and received 322K impressions, 5.9K likes, and 81 comments. Our second Instagram post focused on introducing Martin Wong and had outstanding engagment, having received 726K impressions, 37.5 likes, and 98 comments. Among the vibrant comment section were those that referred to the video as a valuable documentary, said they learned about an artist they didn’t know, were emotional responses, praised the production value and storytelling, conveyed that they watched to the end, and said they identified with the subjects and speakers. These comments all show that we achieved our goals of sharing a powerful archival story about the history of art in New York City. Some highlights include:
“This was really well done maybe one of my favorite videos y’all have done.”
“Gave me shivers. I just learned about Wong recently”
“Watching this makes me feel like humans are special, unlike watching the news or most everyday life. Thank you all involved for making this short doc”
“One of the best little artists bio I’ve seen”
“Really touching”
“This is really amazing. I had never heard of Martin Wong, and I’m really glad this popped up on my feed.”
“Thanks for telling us this art chapter, great documentary!”
