Martin Wong

Big Heat
1986

Two firefighters passionately kiss in front of a towering brick building.

On view
Floor 6

Date
1986

Classification
Paintings

Medium
Acrylic on linen

Dimensions
Overall: 60 1/8 × 48 1/8in. (152.7 × 122.2 cm)

Accession number
99.89

Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee

Rights and reproductions
Courtesy of The Estate of Martin Wong and P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York, NY

API
artworks/12272

In 1981, Martin Wong moved from San Francisco to New York’s Lower East Side, an area known as “Loisaida” by its predominantly Hispanic residents. He began to chronicle the neighborhood’s people, run-down buildings, and storefronts with a straightforward, naturalistic approach, reminiscent of the Ashcan School painters of the early twentieth century and the urban realists who succeeded them in the 1930s. Like Paul Cadmus and Reginald Marsh, among others, Wong infused his “realism” with healthy doses of fantasy and desire. In Big Heat, a typical brick tenement of the Lower East Side is the backdrop for a striking image of two firemen kissing. The ethereal sensations of romance are contrasted with the stark physicality of the tenement bricks, which Wong rendered with thick deposits of acrylic paint that give them a palpable presence, even to the brick-painted frame around the canvas. The passages of green spray paint on the frame of Big Heat are a reminder that Wong was an avid collector and supporter of graffiti art. He saw graffiti as evidence that art and beauty can flourish even in the most unexpected places. Big Heat is Wong’s utopian vision of hope, love, and redemption within the crumbling environs of what was once one of New York’s poorest neighborhoods.

Audio

Verbal Description: Martin Wong, Calentadita, 1986

In Shifting Landscapes Floor 6 (Spanish)

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Verbal Description: Martin Wong, Calentadita, 1986

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Narrador: Calentadita, de Martin Wong, es una pintura acrílica sobre lino de 5 pies de alto por cuatro pies de ancho.

En Calentadita, un edificio de viviendas de ladrillo rojo del Lower East Side es el telón de fondo de dos bomberos que se besan en el primer plano. La parte inferior del edificio está envuelta en hileras de áspera pintura roja, marrón y gris: parece que el edificio se eleva entre nubes de humo. Frente al humo, los dos bomberos visten uniformes de color gris oscuro con herrajes plateados. Los dos hombres son indistinguibles, salvo por su piel cálidamente iluminada y su pelo oscuro. El tono de los hombres besándose amplifica el dramatismo de la humeante escena del edificio que tienen detrás; la tierna expresión de romanticismo y pasión de su cercanía contrasta con la monumentalidad del edificio que se cierne sobre ellos.

La fachada del edificio de viviendas que hay detrás de las figuras está salpicada de paneles descascarillados de pintura pastel, tal vez graffiti o anuncios pintados. Martin Wong pintó los ladrillos del edificio con gruesos grumos de pintura acrílica, que contribuyen a dar al edificio una sensación de peso y solidez.

Wong era un ávido partidario del arte del graffiti, como demuestra el marco de ladrillo marrón que rodea el lienzo y que está salpicado de verde fluorescente. El artista hizo que este cuadro pareciera como si los bomberos y el edificio estuvieran pintados sobre un ladrillo real, como si la escena se hubiera creado sobre la fachada de un edificio. El “realismo” del cuadro queda impactado, no sólo por la escena de deseo en primer plano, sino también por este truco del ojo.

Andrew Castrucci, amigo del artista, habló sobre Calentadita: “Las viviendas eran hermosas para Martin, por muy vacías que estuvieran. Era como una ruina romana o una ruina griega o una ruina egipcia, las pirámides... Los artistas redefinen constantemente lo que es la belleza. Así que creo que esta es otra perspectiva de redefinir la belleza: los bomberos besándose. Sin duda celebra la vida gay, pero también es, creo, más abstracto que eso. De alguna manera, se trata de contactos humanos. Quiero decir que forma parte de la naturaleza de la ciudad este hermoso caos, de alguna manera, aunque sea muy tranquilo y quieto”.
June 6, 2015
Marvin J. Taylor on Big Heat by Martin Wong

In 99 Objects

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June 6, 2015
Marvin J. Taylor on Big Heat by Martin Wong

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Martin Wong, Big Heat, 1988

In America Is Hard to See

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Martin Wong, Big Heat, 1988

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Narrator: This 1988 painting by artist Martin Wong is called Big Heat. Andrew Castrucci was a friend of the artist. During the 1980s, he and Wong were both residents of the Lower East Side.
Andrew Castrucci: I knew him as a character of the neighborhood. He used to walk around with this, the firemen's uniform, actually. So he was kind of very theatrical. Martin lived, I believe on Attorney Street in a tenement there and he did have an obsession and love for, for bricks.
The tenements were beautiful to Martin, no matter how empty it was or, or so forth. It was like a Roman ruin or a Greek ruin or an Egyptian ruin, the pyramids. What Martin was part of, what I was part of, we were trying to hold on to. . .the whole tradition of what the Lower East Side was about. The diversity of it. . .It's very gentrified now and so forth.
Artists are constantly redefining what beauty is. So I think this is just another perspective of redefining beauty—the kissing firemen. It certainly celebrates gay life, but it's also, I think, more abstract than that. It's just about human contacts, somehow. I mean it's part of the nature of the city is this beautiful chaos, somehow. And I really see this in this painting even though it's very calm and still.