video thumbnail 9:32
The Best Photographer You've Never Heard Of

2025-03-26

[public] 73.0K views, 12.7K likes, dislikes audio only

channel thumbNerdwriter1
4K

Go to https://www.squarespace.com/nerdwriter for 10% off your first purchase.

Produced in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art Production Studio. For more National Gallery of Art videos: https://www.youtube.com/@NationalGalleryofArtUS

Thanks

Chris Gray

Andrea Nelson

Muna Tseng

Archival footage courtesy of © Cine Light / Lombardmc.

SOURCES

A lot of what I learned for this video came from a conversation I had with Kwong Chi's sister, Muna Tseng, who is a brilliant artist in her own right. Check out her work here:

https://www.munatseng.org/

The audio of Kwong Chi's voice at the end is from an interview with Roland Hagenberg, from 1987, which was provided by Muna Tseng.

Bacalzo, Dan. “Portraits of Self and Other: ‘SlutForArt’ and the Photographs of Tseng Kwong Chi.” Theatre Journal, vol. 53, no. 1, 2001, pp. 73–94. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25068884

Day, Iyko. “Tseng Kwong Chi and the Eugenic Landscape.” American Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 1, 2013, pp. 91–118. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41809549

“Tseng Kwong Chi: Monuments and Natural Wonders.” Aperture, no. 110, 1988, pp. 16–16. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24472107

https://www.nga.gov/stories/visionary-photographer-tseng-kwong-chi-vintage-selfies.html

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/tseng-kwong-chi-an-ambiguous-ambassador-to-life-in-america

MUSIC (via Epidemic Sound)

Steall Waters - Luba Hilman

Lost Empire - David Celeste

Entanglement - Luba Hilman

Silent Reverie - Tellsonic