Ka-Man Tse

Ka-Man Tse is a photographer, video artist, and educator based in New York.[1] Influenced by her identity as a Chinese-American lesbian,[2] Tse primarily uses portraiture to tell stories about people, identity, visibility, and place.[3]

Early life and education

Born in Hong Kong, Tse moved to the U.S. where she and her family worked in Schenectady, New York in Chinese restaurants. During the 1980s and 1990s, Tse made regular road trips to Chinatown, New York which served as a surrogate for her birthplace. Her relationship with these three cities - New York City, Schenectady, and Hong Kong - is an ongoing investigation in her work.[4]

In 2003 Tse received her B.A. from Bard College and went on to receive an M.F.A. in 2009 from Yale University.[1]

Art

Ka-Man Tse's work deals with visibility and representation through photography and film. She strives to locate points of intersection between LGBT and Asian and Pacific Islander communities. She mainly works with a large format view camera to take photographs that examine what is shared and negotiated between these two seemingly distant communities.[4]

Portraits and Narratives of LGBTQ Asians and Asian Americans

In 2014 she received the Robert Giard Fellowship grant for her project, Portraits and Narratives of LGBTQ Asians and Asian Americans. The artist describes this body of work as an examination of community and human agency through photographs, both staged and organic, of her subjects in public spaces. Tse mixes personal memories, obsessions, stories and portraiture in order to conceptualize queer narratives and photograph them while they unfold in public space.[5]

Narrow Distances

Ka Man-Tse's solo show, Narrow Distances, featured a series of photographs taken in Hong-Kong, and aimed to rework the world out of a desire to see it re-imagined with the queer narrative in mind. Tse used placement, foregrounding and the connection with her subjects, to recast the social landscape of Hong-Kong. The title of the show is an allusion to the over-populated streets of the city as well as the space between Asian and LGBT communities. The show features intimate portraits of queer Chinese city-goers set against a backdrop of the Hong-Kong landscape. The subjects and setting work harmoniously together to create poetic images that confront issues of identity and representation.The show was held at Lumenvisum gallery in 2016 and was the artist's first solo exhibition[6] in Hong Kong.

In Search of Miss Ruthless

Ka-Man Tse's photographs have been featured in the group show, In Search of Miss Ruthless, which examined the history of beauty pageants in Asia. Curated by Hera Chan and David Xu Borgonjon, the show was based on Canadian artist group, General Idea’s project titled,The 1971 Miss General Idea Pageant. In Search of Miss Ruthless, features two of Ka-Man Tse's photographs which were met with critical acclaim.[7]

The first photo featured in the show is titled Embrace (2015), and features a group of Asian-Pacific Islander women locked in an emotional hug after the conclusion of a beauty pageant in New York. The women wear expressions ranging from joy to relief as they frantically cling to one another in an overtly emotional and extravagant embrace, speaking to the forced, enhanced smiles and personas of beauty pageant contestants.[7]

The second photo included, Untitled, is a photograph of Rye Bautista, otherwise known as La Chiquitta,[8] one of Hong-Kong's preeminent drag queens, alone on a roof top in Hong-Kong. The subject is seen slumped on the ground, wig-less, barefoot and smoking a cigarette. His gaze looks off past the photographer and into the night sky. His heavily made up face starkly contrasts with the baldness of his head and the undone nonchalance in his posture. Here, Ka-Man Tse captures La Chiquitta behind the scenes, taking a break, bringing a sense of normalcy to the highly exaggerated persona drag queens adopt. Ka-Man Tse actively includes an Asian drag queen in a group show about beauty pageants, starting a conversations about similarities between the two worlds and contributing to her larger goal of increasing visibility of the LGBT community.[9]

Tse has exhibited solo shows in the United States and Hong Kong.

Teaching

Ka-Man Tse has taught at Cooper Union and The City College of New York[10] and currently holds academic positions at Yale University School of Art[1] and Parsons.[11]

Selected exhibitions

2017: In Search of Miss Ruthless, Para Site, Hong Kong[12]

2016: Narrow Distances, Lumenvisum, Kowloon, Hong Kong [6]

2014: Our Portraits, Our Families, Museum of Chinese in America, New York, NY[13]

2013: Bronx Calling: The Second AIM Biennial, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY[14]

2012: America Through a Chinese Lens, Museum of Chinese in America, New York, NY[15]

Selected Awards and Residencies

2015: Silver Eye Center for Photography Fellowship[16]

2014: Robert Giard Foundation Fellowship[5]

2013: Artist in the Marketplace Program, The Bronx Museum of the Arts[17]

2012: Seniors Partnering with Artists Citywide Residency (SPARC), Queens Council of the Arts, Flushing, NY[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Yale University School of Art: Ka Man Tse". art.yale.edu. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  2. ↑ "How Asian Families Learn to Welcome a LGBTQ Child's Partner". Slate. 2014-07-29. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  3. ↑ "Interview: Ka-man Tse on the power of portraits". Time Out Hong Kong. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  4. 1 2 "Ka-Man Tse Photography". The New York Public Library. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  5. 1 2 "The Robert Giard Foundation - Ka-Man Tse". robertgiardfoundation.org. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  6. 1 2 "Narrow Distances・Ka-Man Tse | Lumenvisum". www.lumenvisum.org. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  7. 1 2 "ArtAsiaPacific: In Search Of Miss Ruthless". artasiapacific.com. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  8. ↑ "Hong Kong 'no gay paradise' for drag queen La Chiquitta". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  9. ↑ "Critic's Guide: Hong Kong". frieze.com. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  10. ↑ "Ka-Man Tse Photography". tsewhat.com. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  11. ↑ "Ka-Man Tse - Parsons School of Design". www.newschool.edu. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  12. ↑ "In Search of Miss Ruthless - Para Site". www.para-site.org.hk. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  13. ↑ "Our Portraits, Our Families". asianprideproject.org. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  14. ↑ exhibit-e.com. "Bronx Calling: - Exhibitions - The Bronx Museum of the Arts". www.bronxmuseum.org. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  15. ↑ "America through a Chinese Lens | Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA)". www.mocanyc.org. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  16. ↑ "Fellowship 16: Ka-Man Tse & Aaron Blum". Silver Eye Center for Photography. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  17. ↑ "Times Square Arts: Ka-Man Tse". arts.timessquarenyc.org. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
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