4.
Tseng Kwong Chi (Canadian, born Hong Kong, active in New York City, 1950–1990)
Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, 1986, from the self-portrait series East Meets West, 1979 –1989
1986
Gelatin silver print, selenium-toned
Purchased by the Block Museum Board of Advisors in honor of Provost Daniel Linzer for his dedication to the arts at Northwestern and to The Block Museum of Art, 2017.4.1
From 1979 until his premature death from AIDS in 1990, Tseng Kwong Chi made an art of performing the self, producing photographs in which he embedded his body within and amid a range of landscapes and social scenarios. In Mount Rushmore, South Dakota he stares up at the sculpted faces of former US presidents on Mount Rushmore National Memorial, clad in a Zhongshan suit (famously associated with Mao Zedong and commonly associated with Chinese communism). Eight years earlier, Tseng had attended a black-tie event, dressed in the same style of suit. His resulting treatment as a revered Chinese dignitary inspired him to begin deliberately performing this mistaken identity elsewhere as the “Ambiguous Ambassador.”
This work is part of a series of self-portraits titled East Meets West, 1979 –1989 in which Tseng photographed himself performing this persona in popular tourist destinations like the Grand Canyon and the Golden Gate Bridge (below).
Tseng Kwong Chi, San Francisco, CA, 1979 [Golden Gate Bridge], from the series East Meets West, 1979–1989