Join us for Paradesign: The Work of Tobias Wong, A Panel Discussion moderated by designer, curator, and gallery director Olivia Shao, with Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Rama Chorpash, Associate Professor and the Director of Product Design at Parsons The New School for Design.

Paradesign: The Work of Tobias Wong is presented by the curators of Tobias Wong, “Untitled” (Golden) …, Dean MacGregor and Pablo Griff.

This event is free, but attendees are encouraged to support the Bureau by purchasing books and/or making a donation.

About the exhibition:

Tobias Wong, “Untitled” (Golden) …

January 18 – April 14, 2019 

Download a PDF of the press release.

New York, New York –The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is proud to present Tobias Wong, “Untitled” (Golden) …, an exhibition of the late artist/designer’s work that played with the definition of what constituted art or design. The exhibition will present a selection of his work alongside objects from his personal collection that served as muses for his artistic design work.  This includes a wide variety of table lamps as well as ephemera that he collected.

In a press release issued at the time of Wong’s death in 2010, architecture and design curator, friend, and colleague Aric Chen wrote: “Through his work, Wong helped bring forth much of what is now taken for granted in contemporary culture. Influenced by Dada and, especially, Fluxus, he questioned authorship through appropriation; held a mirror to our desires and absurdities; upended the hierarchy between design and art, and the precious and the banal; and helped redefine collaboration and curation as creative practices. Working within what he termed a “paraconceptual” framework, Wong prompted a reevaluation of everything we thought we knew about design: its production, its psychological resonance, its aesthetic criteria, its means of distribution, its attachment to provenance, its contextualization and its manner of presentation. Wong was a keen observer, an original mind, a brilliant prankster, and an unerring friend.

“Wong’s work was widely exhibited, including at the Museum of Modern Art and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. His many projects included those for Colette, Comme des Garcons, Prada/OMA, Cappellini and Swarovski Crystal Palace. In addition to the objects he created, re-created, repurposed, rarefied and otherwise manipulated, Wong’s work included events and happenings that included, among many others, a pop-up tattoo parlor at Art Basel Miami Beach/Design Miami and the Wrong Store, a “store” in New York that was in fact never open. (As with much of Wong’s work, both were collaborations.) Wong was named Young Designer of the Year by Wallpaper* magazine (2004) as well as the Brooklyn Museum of Art (2006). In 2008 and 2009, he served as founding co-creative director of 100% Design Shanghai, affiliated with the 100% Design fairs in London and Tokyo.

“Born and raised in Vancouver, Wong studied in Toronto before moving to New York in 1997 to attend the Cooper Union, from which he graduated with a major in sculpture.”

The exhibition is curated by:

Dean MacGregor, an artist who has done projects at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Morgan Library and many others.  He recently did his sleeping project at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Pablo Griff is an artist and was a consultant to the retrospective of Tobias Wong’s work at the Museum of Vancouver in 2012.

Image: Tobias Wong, blue anus, 1998 (replica 2016 courtesy Lite Brite Neon, Brooklyn), Estate of Tobias Wong

Learn more about the work of Tobias Wong:

Tobi’s website

“From A to Wong, and Back Again,” Flash Art May-June 2015

Tobi’s works in San Francisco MOMA collection

NY Times obituary, June 3, 2010