Wu Tsang-Cedar Herald Index

Wu Tsang (born 1982 in Worcester, Massachusetts) is a filmmaker, artist and performer based in New York and Berlin, whose work is concerned with hidden histories, marginalized narratives, and the act of performing itself. In 2018, Tsang received a MacArthur "genius" grant.

According to Tsang, her films, videos, and performances look to explore the "in-betweeness" in which people and ideas cannot be discussed in binary terms. Generally, her films form a hybrid of narrative and documentary; they do not conform fully to one form or the other.

Wu Tsang

Her projects have been presented at the Tate Modern (London), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Migros Museum (Zurich), the Whitney Museum and the New Museum (New York), the MCA Chicago, MoCA Los Angeles and SFMOMA (San Francisco). In 2012 she participated in the Whitney Biennial, Liverpool Biennial and Gwangju Biennial.

Wu Tsang

Education

Tsang received a B.F.A. (2004) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an M.F.A. (2010) from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Wu Tsang

Work

Film

Tsang's best-known documentary, Wildness, documents the Los Angeles trans bar "Silver Platter". Wu Tsang directed and produced the film. It was co-written with Roya Rastegar. The film was premiered at the MoMA Documentary Fortnight in New York and has been screened at festivals in Canada, the US, and Chile. Since 1963, "Silver Platter" has been a historic bar that patronised by a predominantly Latin LGBT community. Wildness documents what happens when a group of young artists host a weekly performance night at the bar. Documenting the collision between the two LGBT communities, the film poses questions about community, space, and ownership. In an interview, Tsang describes how this film represents a number of people who are often stereotyped, such as trans people, people of color, and queer communities, and she experiments with how to be accountable to the communities that she documents. Her collaborators include poet and scholar Fred Moten as well as performance artist boychild.