Keith Haring, Muna Tseng and Tseng Kwong Chi: Boundless Minds & Moving Bodies in 80s New York

Introduction by Fabian de Kloe, Cynthia Jordens. Text by Barry Blinderman, Bill T. Jones, Joshua Chambers-Letson. Interview with Muna Tseng by Carlo McCormick.

In the days of downtown New York in the ’70s and ’80s, three boundary-pushing artists flourished: Keith Haring (1958–90), Muna Tseng (born 1953) and Tseng Kwong Chi (1950–90). Boundless Minds & Moving Bodies presents an intimate visual journey through the early collaborations between these artists and friends, offering a unique and colorful prism of their expression through their respective disciplines: drawing, dance and photography, respectively. Their work and interactions reveal a shared performative energy—the joy of experimenting, openness, exchange and social engagement. Together and independently, they were immersed in and contributors to the bustling and vibrant cultural downtown scene.

This book features the 1982 collaboration between Haring and Tseng, in which the former created the set for the latter, drawing a visual score for her performance piece Epochal Songs. Tseng’s brother, Kwong Chi, took photographs of Haring’s work in the subways, on the streets and during public performances, rendering them accessible to audiences across the globe. Next to the collaborative work of Haring and Tseng, the publication introduces Kwong Chi’s own body of seminal work: the famous self-portrait series East Meets West, which he made while visiting many iconic tourist sites across the world with Haring.

© Keith Haring Foundation. Licensed by Artestar, New York.