Martin Wong: Popeye centers on eight large-scale Popeye painted sculptures — kinetic cutouts created in the last decade of Wong's life, intended to be motorized and rarely exhibited — brought together and activated for the first time. Toggling between Op Art, Tibetan Citipati, the Terracotta Army, and Saturday morning cartoons, the works collapse hierarchies between high and low, East and West, comics and canon. Beyond pop cultural commentary, Wong's Popeyes carry an erotic charge — necks rising from valentines, noses and sailor-capped heads rendered phallic — consistent with the homoerotic undercurrent running throughout his career.
