Art is divine

Genius in duo

by Micha Christos

KUNSTHAUS ZÜRICH

Switzerland

From September 20, 2024 to January 26, 2025

MATTHEW WONG – VINCENT VAN GOGH

PAINTING AS A LAST RESORT

Vincent van Gogh, The Road to Tarascon, 1888 Brown and black pen over graphite pencil on paper (vellum), 25.8 x 35 cm Kunsthaus Zürich, Graphic Arts Collection

From September 20, 2024 to January 26, 2025, the Kunsthaus is devoting an exhibition to the artistic and biographical parallels between the Chinese-Canadian painter Matthew Wong and Vincent van Gogh. For the first time in Switzerland, it will showcase around 35 interiors and imaginary landscapes by Matthew Wong, complemented by a dozen masterpieces by Vincent van Gogh. Matthew Wong (1984 - 2019), a Chinese-Canadian painter, said of Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890): “I see myself in him. The impossibility of belonging to this world.”

Vincent van Gogh, View of Arles with Irises in the Foreground, 1888 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Their artistic fraternity beyond time was as painful as it was colorful, leading to the same end because Wong, like Van Gogh, committed suicide. Wong had come to painting like Van Gogh as an autodidact. He immersed himself desperately in Western art as in Chinese art, drawing inspiration from his soul brother Vincent as well as from Matisse, Klimt, Katz, Kusama and Shitao. Wang put his dynamism and his highly evocative lyricism into his paintings in a sumptuous palette. A spiritual relative of Van Gogh, he shared with him significant mental disorders from a very young age.

Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield with Cornflowers, 1890 Oil on canvas, 60 x 81 cm, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel,Beyeler Collection

W ong benefited in his time, the 21st century, from the virtual library of the net to immerse himself in all the references of the history of art at his f ingertips thanks to the mobile phone. His work is clearly contemporary but he also used very traditional techniques such as ink on rice paper, which connects him to his historical Chinese roots.

Van Gogh was probably the very first painter to put the expression of his moods at the heart of his landscape paintings. Matthew Wong follows in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor in his own way, his paintings are also charged with emotion and, in his case, the touch as well as the chosen motifs reflect his inner world

T he exhibition at the Kunsthaus highlights the common points, but also the specifics of the two artists by offering each dedicated spaces, while occasionally associating certain works. T he staging and architecture of the exhibition offer visual axes to rhythm in perfect autonomy the immense canvases of Wong with those more reduced of Van Gogh.

Awhirlwind of colors and a living power of creative frenzy for two celestial souls who could not bear

the weight of their incredible genius on their fragile psyche. Exciting and moving journey…

Vincent van Gogh, The House of Father Pilon, 1890 Oil on canvas, 49 x 70 cm Private collection

Vincent van Gogh, The Cypress and the Flowering Tree, 1889 Oil on canvas, 51.4 x 64.8 cm Private collection