San Francisco, California
Tseng Kwong Chi, American (born in Hong Kong), 1950 - 1990
1979
Gelatin silver print
Edition of 25
Overall: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Virginia and Preston T. Kelsey 1958 Fund. Selected by participants in the seminar "Museum Collecting 101": Garret D. Andreine, Class of 2022; Madeleine (Maddy) Codding, Class of 2025; Eda Naz Gokdemir, Class of 2025; Sydney A. Hoose, Class of 2025; Chuanyuzhu (Alene) Jin, Class of 2025; Millie A. Keogh, Class of 2025; Denis Lee, Class of 2025; Isabelle (Izzy) Lust, Class of 2025; Ellie McLaughlin, Class of 2025; Eddi Mo, Class of 2025; Aryanna Qusba, Class of 2025; Elisabeth Schlossel, Class of 2025; Sadie A. Weil, Class of 2025; Tea Wallmark, Class of 2025
© Tseng Kwong Chi
2022.39
Geography
Place Imaged: San Francisco, United States, North America
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Photograph
Research Area
Photograph
Not on view
Label
Known as the “grandfather of selfies,” late photographer Tseng Kwong Chi offers a playful distortion of the tourist photograph. Part of his East Meets West series, Tseng offers a heightened performance of the Oriental other, even changing his anglicized name, Joseph Tseng, to Tseng Kwong Chi. The series parodied the anticommunist sentiment being reignited in 1979, on the eve of the Reagan Revolution. By distorting scale, Tseng creates the illusion that he is as large as the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge. Is he a tourist, an alien invader, or a Communist agent? With his mirrored glasses and uniform, his performance of inscrutable Chineseness evokes the perpetual foreignness of the “Asiatic” on US shores.
From the 2025 exhibition Visual Kinship, curated by Alisa Swindell, Associate Curator of Photography, Dr. Kimberly Juanita Brown, Dr. Thy Phu and Dr. Iyko Day
Course History
ASCL 7.03,Asian-American Art and Architecture, Sujin Eom, Winter 2023
Asian Society, Culture, & Language 7.03, Asian-American Art and Architecture, Sujin Eom, Winter 2023
Art History 38.03, Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages 70.02, East Meets West, Sunglim Kim, Spring 2024
Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages 70.24, Asian American Art and Architecture, Sujin Eom, Spring 2024
College Course 26.01, What’s in Your Toolbox?, Casey Aldrich and Mokhtar Bouba, Fall 2025
Women’s, Gender, Sexuality Studies 65.07, Queer Popular Culture, Eng-Beng Lim, Fall 2025
Exhibition History
Visual Kinship, Lathrop, Jaffe and Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 30 - November 29, 2025.
Provenance
Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2022.
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