Tseng Kwong Chi, known as Joseph Tseng prior to his professional career[1] (Chinese: 曾廣智; September 6, 1950 – March 10, 1990), was a Hong Kong-born American photographer who was active in the East Village[1] art scene in the 1980s. He is the brother of dancer/choreographer Muna Tseng.
Tseng Kwong Chi | |
|---|---|
 Disneyland, California, from the series East Meets West (1979) at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2023 | |
| Born | Joseph Tseng September 6, 1950 |
| Died | March 10, 1990 (aged 39) Manhattan, New York City, United States |
| Occupation | Photographer |
| Years active | 1979–1989 |
| Notable work | East Meets West |
| Website | tsengkwongchi |
Work
Tseng was part of a circle of artists in the 1980s New York art scene including Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf and Cindy Sherman.[2]
Tseng's most famous body of work is his self-portrait series, East Meets West, also called the "Expeditionary Series". In the series, Tseng dressed in what he called his "Mao suit" and sunglasses (dubbed a "wickedly surrealistic persona"[1] by The New York Times) and photographed himself situated, often emotionlessly, in front of iconic tourist sites. These included the Statue of Liberty, Cape Canaveral, Disneyland,[1] Notre-Dame de Paris, and the World Trade Center.
Tseng also took over 40,000 of photographs of New York graffiti artist Keith Haring[3] throughout the 1980s working on murals, installations and the subway.[4] In 1984, his photographs were shown with Haring's work at the opening of the Semaphore Gallery East location in a show titled "Art in Transit". Tseng photographed[when?] the first Concorde landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport, from the tarmac.[1] According to his sister, Tseng drew artistic influence from Brassaï and Henri Cartier-Bresson.[1]
Life
Tseng's father was a Kuomintang officer who fled Shanghai in 1949 when the Communists won the Chinese Civil War.[5] Tseng was born in British Hong Kong the following year[5] and was a child prodigy in Chinese painting and calligraphy.[1] He was educated at St Joseph's College[5] before his parents moved the family to Canada when he was 16.[5] He originally studied painting at Académie Julian in Paris,[6] but switched to photography after one year,[1] having gained an interest photography after his father gave him a Rolleiflex camera.[5] He moved to Manhattan's East Village in 1979,[3][5] where he soon met fellow avant-garde artists Haring,[3][5] Scharf,[3][5] Jean-Michel Basquiat,[5] and Ann Magnuson.[3]
Tseng started documenting Haring's work through photograph in 1979, travelling with him from 1982-1989, expanding his own East Meets West series.[7]
Tseng died of AIDS-related illness in 1990,[4][8] and was survived by his companion of seven years, Robert-Kristoffer Haynes, who remains a resident of New York City[as of?] and serves as Registrar at Paula Cooper Gallery.[as of?] Tseng's work is in the public collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.[9] Tseng has been included in the Asian American Arts Centre's digital archive.[10]
Books
- Chi, Tseng Kwong & Richard Martin, Tseng Kwong Chi (Kyoto Shoin International Co., Ltd / Art Random, Kyoto, Japan, 1990)
- Tseng Kwong Chi, Ambiguous Ambassador (Nazraeli Press, 2005)
- Cameron, Dan & Wei, Lily, Tseng Kwong Chi: Self Portraits 1979-1989 (Ben Brown Fine Arts & Paul Kasmin Gallery, 2008)
- Kwong Chi Tseng, Tseng Kwong Chi, Citizen of the World (Ben Brown Fine Arts Hong Kong, 2014)
- Chi, Tseng Kwong, Amy Brandt, Alexandra Chang, Lynn Gumpert, Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson, Muna Tseng, Tseng Kwong Chi: Performing For the Camera (Chrysler Museum of Art, Grey Art Gallery, New York University in association with Lyons Artbooks, 2015)