GAYLETTER

Trust me, you need to know about the work of Tseng Kwong Chi. I’ll apologize up front for not inviting you to the opening of his exhibition, but hey, I didn’t know about it either. The Grey Art Gallery at NYU is hosting the first major museum retrospective of Tseng’s work: Performing For The Camera until July 11th. Sadly, Tseng died at the age of 39 from AIDS-related complications but not before he left a prolific, diverse and ground-breaking body of work. There are fascinating Polaroid photo montages, celebrity portraits of Basquiat, Warhol and Tseng’s intimate friend Keith Haring as well as 12 works from his classic series of selfies (before they were ever on the map) titled East Meets West, that evolved into the Expeditionary series and more. In many of these series Tseng chose to wear the somewhat drab, yet classic, Communist Mao suit with an ID attached to his jacket. He photographed parties as diverse as the Met Ball, and Republican political events and his work is included in the Met’s current exhibition “China Through The Looking Glass,” on view through August 16th.

I was not prepared to process how diverse and unquestionably visionary Tseng was — a revolutionary, fearlessly entering social, artistic and political environments (with a camera) the Chinese never gained access to prior. “In exaggerating his difference into an exotic mystique, Tseng found a way to infiltrate spaces typically closed to Asians and other minority groups.” Take some sun in Washington Square Park, sip a beer in a brown paper bag, cruise hot and horny NYU boys looking for guidance then check out the show.

Here’s a preview of the show:

All images are courtesy of Grey Art Gallery.

SUGGESTED $3, 11:00AM-6:00PM, Grey Art Gallery, NYU, 100 Washington Square E. NY, NY.