P·P·O·W is pleased to present a selection of rarely seen, historic ceramic sculptures by Martin Wong. All created between 1968—71, the works on view not only evince Wong’s skillful hand in the ceramic medium but also showcase the artist’s singular ability to synthesize art historical allusions, religious iconography, Pop culture, and the natural world into objects imbued with enchanted energy.

After graduating high school in San Francisco in 1964, Wong elected to attend Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA, with a focus on ceramics and printmaking. The artist’s years at university coincided with the rise of Hippie culture and San Francisco’s Summer of Love, social movements that had a lasting impact on Wong’s career. As seen in works such as Untitled (Spine Spiral), c.1970—71, and Untitled (Love Letter Incinerator), 1970, the suggestion of mandalas and the Dharmachakra — a wheel symbol found throughout Buddhist and Hindu cultures — ties directly back to the Bay Area counterculture and its conflation of Asian spiritual traditions. Equally interested in situating his own practice within the lineage of the Western art historical canon, Wong — an avid collector of antiques — also sourced visual inspiration from European Christian relics, a gesture reinforced by the artist’s decision to stage a guerrilla installation of his ceramic sculptures at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in 1970.

To Wong, Grace Cathedral provided the perfect backdrop to his Paleozoic creations: West meets East, high art meets low, and the universal truths espoused across disparate religions are ossified into singular ceramic forms. Through this synthesis of allusions and references, Wong created objects that simultaneously mirror and disrupt social orders, eliminating cultural hierarchies while offering sites for democratized, utopic reflection.