Ambiguous Ambassador by Tseng Kwong Chi — showing at Boston’s Bernie Toale Gallery until the end of September — is classic deadpan photographic self-portraiture. Chi (1950-1990) appears in each photograph in his “Mao suit,” reflective sunglasses, bulb release in hand, (and occasionally with his official visitor’s ID badge) posing as an uberman world traveler, documented with all the tourist-beset treasures of the world.
The series is extensive, as is revealed by a quick paging through of Chi’s book of the same name. Toale exhibits only a fraction of these images, but the choices of images and sequencing are carried out wisely. Mixed in with those propaganda-poster tourist-shots are meditative images in which Chi’s ambassador character is very much a part of the landscape he is visiting. He is caught in transit, still stiff, but no longer so self-consciously posing; he simply observes and passes through these famous (though sometimes ambiguous) spaces of wonder.
This is particularly effective as one stands in front of a large crisply contrasty black-and-white print in person. I gazed over Chi’s shoulder into the Grand Canyon. Is it notable, perhaps, that this image is taken a decade later in his career, three years before the end of his life?
Is this character a commie time-traveler, or an art student with frequent-flyer miles? What does he think of all that he has discovered in this world? He seems rather bored after a while, or at least, he’s putting on the show of unimpressed dignitary, from wherever he is from, whoever he is. He evokes the prim unknowableness of early Gilbert and George, but in those moments in between postcard snapshots, forecasts the wanderlust of the everyman nowhere man of Robert ParkeHarrison.
A nice write-up of Ambiguous Ambassador on Utata Tribal Photography concludes “In the end, what began as a lark developed into a tongue-in-cheek sociological exploration of the notion of cultural and racial identity. Tseng’s self-portraits aren’t really self-portraits at all. He isn’t photographing himself; he’s not really even photographing that stiff-backed Maoist persona; he’s photographing the very concept of social and cultural identity.”
