The painter Martin Wong, whose vivid canvases are jam-packed with imagery taken from street scenes of the Lower East Side, had his last gallery show in New York in 1993 at P.P.O.W. Weakened by AIDS, Wong stopped painting shortly thereafter and moved back to California to live with his mother. Now, the former fixture of the ’80s East Village scene is the subject of a midcareer retrospective, coorganized by Dan Cameron, senior curator at the New Museum, and Barry Blinderman, director of the University Galleries at Illinois State, where the show made its debut in January. Thirty-two paintings will be on display, and the catalogue features essays by the show’s organizers as well as critics Carlo McCormick and Yasmin Ramirez.
