»I see myself in him. The impossibility of belonging in this world«, said Matthew Wong (1984-2019) about Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). The Chinese-Canadian artist Wong, who spent much of his youth in Hong Kong, first completed a degree in photography before deciding to become a draughtsman and painter in his late 20s. On his short, extremely successful path to an impressive, independent style, he was inspired by Henri Matisse, Shitao, Gustav Klimt and Alex Katz, but above all by Vincent van Gogh. The self-taught Wong felt a special connection to the self-taught van Gogh, who also became a painter relatively late, in his late 20s. The exhibition Matthew Wong – Vincent van Gogh. Painting as a Last Resort presents 40 original, large-format works of art by Wong and their relationship to van Gogh's often small-format works. Wong's paintings are being exhibited in Switzerland for the first time. The Kunsthaus Zurich will be showing them from September 20, 2024 to January 26, 2025.
In the 2010s, Matthew Wong was considered a painter's prodigy, one of the most talented painters of his generation. Within just a few years, he achieved an astonishing rise to the upper echelons of the art world. Wong had Tourette's syndrome, was autistic and had also suffered from depression since his youth. In 2019, he committed suicide at the age of 35. Like van Gogh, who, according to current knowledge, most likely also took his own life in his late 30s, Wong depicted his own emotional world in landscapes and interiors. Wong often inserted lonely figures into his painted environments, who appear to be travelers or seekers with an arduous journey ahead of them.
The exhibition was previously on display at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam from March 1 to September 1. In 2025, the exhibition will move to the ALBERTINA Museum in Vienna; the exact dates have not yet been set.
