MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake

Martin Wong, Malicious Mischief
Camden Arts Centre
MARTIN WONG (1946–1999) is a free spirit, and Malicious Mischief is peculiar in the good sense; peculiar to something, rather than weird. What he is peculiar to is the queer and immigrant scenes of west and east coast America, with a sort of controlled playfulness. And boy could he paint.
Some of the figures can seem like Robert Crumb cartoons, and then you see a foreshortened body like one of Michelangelo’s. There’s homage to Peter Blake’s detritus in shop windows. Some clean line painting, and then a scumble of oil paint as delicious as Rembrandt or Bacon.
But Wong is his own man and paints human life struggling against decay in a money-obsessed America. His textured walls, brickwork and gates are full of the fading hope of people who might have seen America as a second chance, rather than an opportunity for money making.

JAN WOOLF finds out where she came from and where she’s going amid Pete Townshend’s tribute to 1970s youth culture

JAN WOOLF applauds the necessarily subversive character of the Palestinian poster in Britain

