This handsome volume features 100 works from Tseng Kwong Chi's pioneering series of large-scale black-and-white self-portraits, produced from 1979 to 1989, many of which have never been published. The son of exiled Chinese nationalists, Kwong Chi was part of a 1980s New York circle that included Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf and Cindy Sherman. His ironic portraits of himself posed in a Mao suit--with a visitor badge reading SLUTFORART," in front of American tourist destinations--found their way to Communist China through Western magazines smuggled into the country in the 1980s, greatly influencing China's avant-garde. Ann Magnuson, a ubiquitous downtown performer in the 80s, mused, "Just who is this visitor from that forbidden land, who is both tasting the fruits of American freedom and slyly satirizing our home of the brave?""

This handsome volume features 100 works from Tseng Kwong Chi's pioneering series of large-scale black-and-white self-portraits, produced from 1979 to 1989, many of which have never been published. The son of exiled Chinese nationalists, Kwong Chi was part of a 1980s New York circle that included Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf and Cindy Sherman. His ironic portraits of himself posed in a Mao suit--with a visitor badge reading SLUTFORART," in front of American tourist destinations--found their way to Communist China through Western magazines smuggled into the country in the 1980s, greatly influencing China's avant-garde. Ann Magnuson, a ubiquitous downtown performer in the 80s, mused, "Just who is this visitor from that forbidden land, who is both tasting the fruits of American freedom and slyly satirizing our home of the brave?""