Tseng Kwong Chi
Ben Brown Fine Arts | Hong Kong
The image of Tseng Kwong Chi dressed in a Mao suit, wearing Ray-Bans, and posing for a self-portrait in front of the World Trade Center for his photograph New York, New York, 1979, is undeniably iconic. After all, selfies were not yet a thing back thenand the twin towers represented a kind of optimism. Rendered in black-and-white, the picture was shot from a low angle. As Tseng gazes upward, light glinting off his sunglasses, his face takes on the same kind of sun-kissed metallic sheen of the monolithic structures rising into the clear sky behind him. The image forms part of the artist’s