When East met West in the images of an overlooked, original photographer

The Hong Kong-born photographer Tseng Kwong Chi (1950-90) was a contemporary and friend of New York artists such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. However, as the writer and video essayist Evan Puschak (aka the Nerdwriter) explores in this short, Tseng’s work never quite achieved the same recognition as his legendary peers. In particular, the piece focuses on Tseng’s most well-known series, East Meets West (1979-89), in which, amid thawing relations between China and the US, he photographed himself wearing an outfit similar to Mao Zedong’s famed ‘Mao suit’ at US landmarks including the White House, the Statue of Liberty and even Disneyland. Presenting in his characteristically incisive and accessible style, Puschak weaves together history and biography to make a case for Tseng’s under-appreciated technical and conceptual brilliance. The video was created on the occasion of an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, ‘which explores how 1970s photographers used the camera to examine shifting identities’.