TSENG KWONG CHI
American
Tseng Kwong Chi gained fame with his remark-
able series of photographsEast Meets Westpro-
duced during the 1980s. Part self-portraiture, part
landscape and tourist photography, Tseng’s dec-
ade-long project investigated notions of cultural
identity with its paradoxical mix of transcendant
and ironic observation.
Born in 1950 in Hong Kong, Joseph Tseng was
the oldest of three children in a traditional Chinese
family. His father, Ronald Tseng, bought a Roll-
eiflex camera while he was in the Nationalist Army,
and passed on a love of the photographic medium,
as well as the camera, to his son. Early art classes at
the St. Joseph’s Art School in Hong Kong con-
sisted primarily of painting and drawing, and
Tseng was quickly identified as a young man of
artistic talent. In 1966, the Tseng family left Hong
Kong and settled in Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada. After a few years of high school and col-
lege in Vancouver and Montreal, Tseng moved to
Paris for formal art training at L’E ́cole Superieure
d’Arts Graphiques of L’Academie Julien. Studying
first painting and then photography, Tseng com-
pleted his degree with honors in 1975.
In 1978, Tseng moved to New York City where
he befriended visual and performance artists in the
East Village including Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf,
Ann Magnuson, and John Sex. This collaborative
group staged exhibitions and events outside of the
traditional gallery structure at places such as Club
57 on St. Mark’s Place and the Mudd Club. Tseng
contributed his photographs to exhibitions as well
as documented the vibrant scene around him.
Tseng’s mature artistic identity first emerged in
1979 when, invited to dinner at a fancy Manhattan
restaurant, he put on the only suit he owned—a
Chinese Communist worker’s uniform he had pur-
chased in Montreal. The restaurant staff mistook
Joseph Tseng for a visiting dignitary and proffered
VIP accommodations. From that day forth, Tseng
adopted his Chinese name, Kwong Chi, and the
traditional form in which the given name follows
the family name, and wore the Maoist suit when-
ever performing as an artist. Tseng added a military
haircut and a small photographic identification
badge to his uniform and in 1980, crashed a recep-
tion at the Metropolitan Museum to celebrate an
exhibition of Ch’ing Dynasty costumes. Tseng was
again mistaken for an official representative of the
Chinese government and welcomed into the event
where he invited celebrities and actual dignitaries to
be photographed with him. Both Henry Kissinger
and Yves Saint Laurent posed with Tseng that
night, and the artist discovered a way to investigate
cultural knowledge and self-identity through the
exploitation of a stereotype.
East Meets Westconsists of approximately 150
black and white photographs produced during the
1980s, initially with his Rolleiflex camera, and after
1987, with a Hasselblad camera. In his earliest work
from the series Tseng visited tourist destinations in
the United States such as Disneyland, the Statue of
Liberty, and Mount Rushmore. In each of these
works he wears his uniform, and dark sunglasses
mask his eyes with a reflective surface. His photo-
ID badge is clearly visible in most images, but its
description of him as ‘‘SLUTFORART’’ in small
typeface is a humorous detail known only to those
familiar with his ironic strategies. Standing before
postcard-perfect views of his destinations, Tseng
took on the role of an anonymous foreign tourist
‘‘visiting’’ from a Communist nation on delicate
footing with the United States in the midst of the
Cold War. In 1984, he described his constructed
identity as ‘‘an inquisitive traveler, a witness of my
time...an ambiguous ambassador’’ (Houston Cen-
ter for Photography, 1992, p. 22). In works such as
Disneyland, California, 1979, Tseng poses with a
cheerfully waving Mickey Mouse against a close
backdrop of hedge and amusement park rides.
Tseng’s stiff posture, tight jaw, and left hand
clenched around the shutter release cable present
an ominous contrast to the diminutive stature of the
wide-eyed cartoon character. The order and control
of Tseng’s character as he looks off into the distance
seems to imply a dismissal of the chaos and frivolity
of capitalist entertainment.
By 1983, Tseng was traveling internationally for
his project and sites such as Notre Dame Cathe-
dral in Paris and the Tower Bridge in London
were also included in hisEast Meets Westseries.
During these years, Tseng remained active in theTSENG KWONG CHI