Martin Wong Was Here - Martin Wong

Martin Wong Was Here by Martin Wong / 5.5 x 8 inches, 24-page photocopied zine published by Nieves in 2025

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Martin Wong is widely recognised for his extraordinary depictions of social, sexual and political scenographies from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Weaving together narratives of queer existence, marginal communities, and urban gentrification, Wong stands out as an important countercultural voice at odds with the art establishment’s reactionary discourse at the time.

Heavily influenced by his immediate surroundings, Wong’s practice merges the visual languages of Chinese iconography, urban poetry, graffiti, carceral aesthetics, and sign language as well as drawing heavily on the Latin American community he became so closely involved with. His work offers important insight into a decisive period of recent American history, as told through its changing urban landscapes and unfolding hidden desires.

Despite his deep engagement with the contemporary scene around him, Wong connected his work to a long tradition in art history. “Basically, I am a Chinese landscape painter,” he once said. “If you look at Chinese landscapes in the museum, they have writing in the sky. They write a poem in the sky and so do I.”