Work > Untitled (Tseng Kwong Chi) (2019-2020)

Lee’s drawings of Tseng Kwong Chi are based on the Hong Kong-based artist’s 1979 series of photographs in which Tseng photographed himself at well-known tourist destinations in the U.S. Dressed in a Zhongshan, or “Mao” suit, Tseng’s masquerade questioned issues of identity, belonging, and cultural difference during the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Tseng, who passed from the disease in 1990, used his body as a performative object; Lee’s meticulous graphite reproductions allude to loss by eliding the artist’s figure. Simulataneously, Lee’s reverential production is an act of cross-temporal embodiment through image.

- David Franz

Untitled (Tseng Kwong Chi, New York 1, New York, 1979)
graphite on paper
8 x 8 inches (20 x 20 cm)
2019
Untitled (Tseng Kwong Chi, New York 2, New York, 1979)
graphite on paper
8 x 8 inches (20 x 20 cm)
2019
Untitled (Tseng Kwong Chi, San Francisco, California, 1979)
graphite on paper
8 x 8 inches (20 x 20 cm)
2019
Untitled (Tseng Kwong Chi, Hollywood Hills, California, 1979)
graphite on paper
8 x 8 inches (20 x 20 cm)
2019
Untitled (Tseng Kwong Chi, Disneyland, California, 1979)
graphite on paper
8 x 8 inches (20 x 20 cm)
2019
Untitled (Tseng Kwong Chi, Los Angeles, California, 1979)
graphite on paper
8 x 8 inches (20 x 20 cm)
2019
Untitled (Tseng Kwong Chi, Cotton Field, Tennessee, 1979)
graphite on paper
8 x 8 inches (20 x 20 cm)
2019
Untitled (Tseng Kwong Chi, New York 3, New York, 1979)
graphite on paper
8 x 8 inches (20 x 20 cm)
2019
Untitled (Tseng Kwong Chi, Washington, D.C., 1982)
graphite on paper
8 x 8 inches (20 x 20 cm)
2019
Untitled (Tseng Kwong Chi, Grand Canyon, Arizona, 1987)
graphite on paper
8 x 8 inches (20 x 20 cm)
2019