LONDON.- The National Gallery today announced Singaporean artist Ming Wong as its new Artist in Residence for 2025. Wong’s broad practice across film, performance, painting and installation draws on the history of cinema, pop culture and speculative fiction to uncover the politics of representation. In re-staging scenes from world cinema in his films and performances, Wong has explored the ways both individual and national identities are coded and constructed. Recent projects have engaged with speculative futures, Sino-American relations and cross-gender opera.

Wong has been invited to respond to the collections of the National Gallery and this year’s partner museum, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea. He begins his residency in March 2025 and will work over the course of the year in the National Gallery’s on-site artist’s studio, benefiting from the close proximity to the collection and archives. This will culminate in a publication and a presentation in winter 2025, as well as a permanent acquisition for Glynn Vivian Art Gallery.

The award is a collaboration with the Contemporary Art Society, generously supported by Suling Mead, who will acquire an artwork produced during the residency for Glynn Vivian Art Gallery. The jury panel to select Wong consisted of Caroline Douglas, Director, Contemporary Art Society; Michael Landy, Artist; Karen MacKinnon, Curator, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea; Joe Scotland, Director, Studio Voltaire, London; Angelica Sule, Director, Film and Video Umbrella, London; and chaired by Daniel F. Herrmann, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Projects, National Gallery, London. The jury were excited by Wong’s career-long dialogue with the cinematic canon, and how his use of homage could be a way to celebrate, subvert and explore the collections of the National Gallery and Glynn Vivian Art Gallery.

The Artist in Residence programme invites a mid-career artist to develop their practice in the context of the museum and to benefit from unparalleled access to the Gallery’s collection. The partnership between the National Gallery and Glynn Vivian Art Gallery gives Wong the opportunity to respond to both the National Gallery’s collection of masterpieces in the Western European tradition as well as the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery collection, which covers a broad spectrum of visual arts from the original bequest of Richard Glynn Vivian (1835‒1910) to 20th- century Welsh and contemporary art, including oil painting, china and glassware.

Wong is the fifth Artist in Residence to be chosen since the launch of the Gallery’s new Modern and Contemporary Programme, following the appointment of Rosalind Nashashibi in 2020, Ali Cherri in 2021, Céline Condorelli in 2023 and Katrina Palmer in 2024.

Ming Wong says: ‘It’s such an exciting time to be granted this opportunity to re-navigate myself in the journeys of European art as the National Gallery celebrates 200 years with a rehang of its collection. There isn’t a better time to reimagine the stories that these characters and creatures inhabiting these worlds can tell one another, and their exchanges that cross centuries and civilisations beyond the frames.’

Daniel F. Herrmann, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Projects, says, 'With genuine compassion, curiosity and grace, Ming Wong’s work asks how the images and culture around us create notions of ourselves and others. We are excited to be working with him during his residency at the National Gallery, particularly as we reflect on the Gallery’s 200-year history.'

Caroline Douglas, Director of the Contemporary Art Society, says, ‘We are delighted to be embarking on a fifth iteration of the Artist in Residence programme with Ming Wong and the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery. Every artist in residence has brought unique new perspectives to the collection and the institution of the Gallery itself, challenging our ideas and making us see the familiar with fresh eyes.’

Karen MacKinnon, Curator, Swansea Council’s Glynn Vivian Art Gallery says, ‘We’re delighted to be working with the National Gallery and Contemporary Art Society on the Artist in Residence programme. Internationally acclaimed artist Ming Wong makes extraordinary interdisciplinary works involving video, performance and installation which challenge fixed notions of identity and authenticity. Through his work he also considers the influence of ‘popular culture’ on our everyday lives and its influence on Chinese modernity. We can’t wait to see how our collections can inspire Ming Wong to create one of his playful and thought-provoking artworks; it will be an honour to be gifted one of these into Glynn Vivian’s permanent collection.’