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A person looks at their reflection in a mirror. Another person watches from behind, holding a handbag. There are captions at the bottom of the image which read 'I'm white! White!'

Ming Wong Life of Imitation 2009, video still. Courtesy of the Artist and Vitamin Creative Space

Ming Wong

10 rooms in Media Networks

  • Andy Warhol and Mark Bradford
  • Monsieur Vénus
  • Everyday Mythologies
  • Cildo Meireles
  • Beyond Pop
  • Guerrilla Girls
  • Martin Kippenberger
  • Shashi Bikram Shah
  • Ming Wong
  • Raimond Chaves

This artist explores the global impact of cinema in shaping identity

Ming Wong makes artworks that imagine alternative histories of cinema. In Life of Imitation Wong inverts the title of Douglas Sirk’s 1959 Hollywood melodrama Imitation of Life. The film examines racial identity and notions of ‘passing.’* In Wong’s version, he restages an emotionally charged scene between a Black maid and her daughter, who is light-skinned and able to ‘pass’ as white. Wong employs male actors from the three dominant ethnic groups of Singapore: Chinese, Malay and Indian. By casting men in these female roles, Wong draws a connection between the exaggerated movements and expressions of melodrama with that of drag, while also complicating notions of national, ethnic and gender identity.

Life of Imitation is a multimedia artwork comprising a video installation and billboard paintings, which are on display in these rooms.

*‘Passing’ is a term used to describe the act of giving the outward appearance of a different racial identity to one’s own, usually to access social and economic benefits conventionally enjoyed by the more privileged majority.

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Tate Modern
Natalie Bell Building Level 4 East
Rooms 8 and 9

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Ming Wong, Life of Imitation  2009

In these billboard paintings, Ming Wong expands the fictional universe of his video installation Life of Imitation to include promotional posters. These artworks are reminiscent of the ‘golden age’ of Singaporean cinema during the 1950s and 1960s. Hand-painted billboards were traditionally used to advertise new releases, considered to be newsworthy events in a time when films could only be consumed as communal events in movie theatres.

Gallery label, November 2022

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T15862: Life of Imitation
Ming Wong Life of Imitation 2009
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