{"id":772177,"date":"2026-02-18T08:07:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T08:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/772177\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T08:07:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T08:07:16","slug":"singaporean-artist-ming-wong-reimagines-a-saint-and-lgbtq-icon-at-london-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/772177\/","title":{"rendered":"Singaporean artist Ming Wong reimagines a saint and LGBTQ icon at London gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Ming Wong was asked to be the 2025 artist in residence at London\u2019s National Gallery, he felt delighted and shocked. \u201cI was really confounded,\u201d he says. \u201cWhy did they invite me?\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Gallery predominantly shows paintings created before 1900, while Wong works mostly with video and performance, sometimes using futuristic imagery borrowed from science fiction.<\/p>\n

Wong, who was born in Singapore, often makes art exploring Asian cinema, theatre and pop culture. In contrast, the National Gallery\u2019s collection is dominated by European art, and its four previous artists in residence were all from Europe or the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Wong has spent almost a year connecting the dots between his work and this bastion of European art history. The result is a new film and installation, Dance of the sun on the water \/ Saltatio solis in aqua, which runs at the gallery until April 5, 2026.<\/p>\n

\"MingMing Wong stands in front of The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (1475) by the brothers Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo. Photo: Ming Wong<\/p>\n

The film is a retelling of the story of St Sebastian, whom Wong kept encountering at the gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Ming Wong was asked to be the 2025 artist in residence at London\u2019s National Gallery, he felt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[113219,51567,29071,748,15350,115391,225803,393,299,4884,225804,5763,257,225802,7584,225806,2143,225801,225800,16,15,225805],"class_list":["post-772177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-aids","tag-ancient-rome","tag-asian","tag-britain","tag-christianity","tag-derek-jarman","tag-diocletian","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-great-britain","tag-hiv-aids-crisis","tag-lgbtq","tag-london","tag-ming-wong","tag-national-gallery","tag-saint-sebastian","tag-singapore","tag-slade-school-of-fine-art","tag-st-sebastian","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wong-kar-wai"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116090610963313733","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}