Heart Digger - Camden Art Centre

Wong Ping creates digital and sculptural works that reveal very human, often universal fantasies, through absurd narratives.

Drawing from his own social encounters, he elaborates his stories into dark humorous tales that touch on political and cultural anxieties. Digitally rendered in a seductive technicolour language, they recall the modernism of Fernand Leger, the pop language of Tom Wesselman or Allen Jones, and the design aesthetic of The Memphis Group and early 1980s video games. These simple but seductive animations also disguise a deeper critique of technology.

Wong Ping is the inaugural recipient of Camden Art Centre’s new Emerging Artist Prize at Frieze (2018). The Prize was established in collaboration with Frieze Art Fair, as part of Camden Arts Centre’s commitment to nurturing and celebrating the most innovative artists of the moment, who have yet to receive the recognition their work deserves. The annual prize awards an artist exhibiting in the Focus section of Frieze London with an exhibition at Camden Art Centre.

The Artist Artist Film Images Supporters

The Artist

Wong Ping (b. 1984, Hong Kong) lives and works in Hong Kong. He is the first recipient of Camden Art Centre’s Emerging Artists Prize. In 2019, Wong had solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Basel — Golden Shower — and CAPRI, Dusseldorf — Who’s the Daddy — and won the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition at the 48th International Film Festival, Rotterdam. In 2018 he was included in New Museum Triennial Songs of Sabotage and One Hand Clapping, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, both New York. Wong was artist in residence at the Chinese Centre for Contemporary Art, Manchester, 2015. His animations have been presented at film festivals internationally, from Belgium and the UK to Mexico and Australia, and have been reviewed in LEAP, ArtAsiaPacific and other publications. Wong’s work is held in numerous international collections including: M+, Hong Kong; KADIST, Paris; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Fosun Art Foundation, Shanghai.

This film was produced by Frieze London for Camden Art Centre on the occasion of Ping's exhibition Heart Digger (5 July - 15 September 2019).

Supporters

Supported by Georgina Townsley, Alexandra Economou and Noach Vander Beken, Nicola Blake, Ronald and Sophie Sofer, Russell Tovey, Alex Klimt and Alexys Schwartz, Simon and Carolyn Franks, Florence Levett and all those who wish to remain anonymous.