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Tseng Kwong Chi: Performing for the Camera

Tseng Kwong Chi: Performing for the Camera

Lyon Artbooks

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Tseng Kwong Chi: Performing for the Camera is the first major book to explore the full range of Tseng Kwong Chi’s groundbreaking photography and performance art. Active during the 1980s, Tseng used the camera as both a creative tool and a stage, producing powerful images that blended humor, politics, and questions of identity.

This richly illustrated volume includes over 100 of his works, spanning from the late 1970s through the late 1980s. It highlights his most famous series, East Meets West, in which Tseng poses in a “Mao suit” at iconic landmarks across the world, as well as lesser-known photographs and rare archival materials from his assignments for the SoHo Weekly News. The book also features intimate portraits of his close friends and fellow artists—Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Kenny Scharf—capturing the vibrant and rebellious spirit of the downtown New York art scene.

Product Details
  • Product Type: Exhibition Catalog, Hardcover
  • 178 pages, with 129 illustrations
  • Published in 2015
  • Shipping Dimensions: 11.25 × 8.75 × 0.875 inches  (28.6 × 22.2 × 2.2 cm)
  • SKU: SKU010002008
  • ISBN: 9780692338674

In these collections: Alle Produkte, Ausstellungskataloge, Bücher & Medien, Tseng Kwong Chi, and Verkauf.

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Tseng Kwong Chi

Über den Künstler

Tseng Kwong Chi

Tseng Kwong Chi was born in Hong Kong in 1950, and when he was 16, his family moved to Vancouver, Canada. He studied art in Paris before going to New York City in 1978. There, Tseng became a key figure in the East Village art scene, often wearing a sharp "Mao suit" and sunglasses. He called himself the “ambiguous ambassador” and used his camera like a stage, standing in front of famous landmarks with a serious face. This series, called East Meets West, showed him near places like Disneyland, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Notre‑Dame—mixing humor with deep questions about identity and how Asians were seen in America.

In 2015, New York University’s Grey Art Gallery organized an exhibition called Performing for the Camera witht the Chrysler Museum, displaying about 80 of Tseng’s photographs and earlier club and street images from the 1980s. The show focused on how Tseng blended performance with photography, making his persona part of the art. He was also a close friend of artist Keith Haring and took many pictures of him working on subway murals and in clubs. Sadly, Tseng died of AIDS in 1990 at age 39, but his work still speaks clearly about culture, performance, and the person behind the camera.

Tseng Kwong Chi im Chrysler Museum
Amy Brandt

Über den Author

Amy Brandt

The late Amy L. Brandt was the McKinnon Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia from 2011 until her death at age 37 in 2015. She received a PhD from The Graduate Center, City University of New York; an M.A. from Tufts University; and a License in art history from the University of Paris, Sorbonne.

Alexandra Chang

Über den Contributor

Alexandra Chang

Alexandra Chang is a scholar of Asian American and Asian diasporic art. Her work explores race, migration, and global art histories, often spotlighting underrepresented artists.

Lynn Gumpert

Über den Contributor

Lynn Gumpert

Lynn Gumpert was the director of NYU’s Grey Art Gallery (now retired). She curated many important exhibitions on contemporary art and was a longtime advocate for Tseng’s work.

Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson

Über den Contributor

Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson

Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson is a performance studies scholar whose research connects art, politics, and queer theory. He often writes about how artists use performance to resist and reshape culture.

Muna Tseng

Über den Contributor

Muna Tseng

Muna Tseng is a dancer, choreographer, and the sister of Tseng Kwong Chi. She manages his artistic estate and has worked to preserve and share his legacy through exhibitions and publications.

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