Ming Wong

Bloody Marys, Song of the South Seas

Ming Wong

In this work, sixteen Bloody Marys are woven together, mostly from amateur and high school musical productions found on the internet and interlaced with the artist’s own rendition and the original Bloody Mary from Rogers and Hammerstein’s stage musical South Pacific.

Lehre Deutsch mit Petra von Kant

Ming Wong

Ming Wong - 'In 2007 just before moving to Berlin, I made Lerne Deutsch mit Petra von Kant / Learn German with Petra von Kant in which I tried to learn to speak and act like a German by closely emulating the actress Margit Carstensen in the role of fashion designer Petra von Kant, suffering a mid-life-career-crisis in Rainer Werner Fassbinder´s 1972 film Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant). I invited ten of my students to make this work with me to commemorate ten (mostly) productive years of German integration. A broad spectrum of young artists in Berlin, some of whom were as new to the city as I had been in 2007, collectively transformed into this new and restlessly changing figure of Petra von Kant of the new millenium.'

Life of Imitation

Ming Wong

Sebastian Tan, Moe Kasim

Originally commissioned for the 53rd Venice Biennale for the artist’s solo exhibitioin Life of Imitation at the Singapore Pavilion, this work is inspired by a scene from the classic Hollywood melodrama by Douglas Sirk, Imitation of Life (1959) where a black mother meets her mixed-race daughter who has been running away from her true ‘identity’. This version features 3 male actors from the 3 main ethnic groups in Singapore (Chinese, Malay and Indian) taking turns to play the black mother and her ‘white’ daughter. The identity of the actor for each role constantly changes with each shot.

Sunu Jappo

Ming Wong

Exploration of the Chinese-Senegalese relationship, featuring the Museum of Black Civilisations, recently built by China and conceived as a symbol of decolonisation.