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M+, Hong Kong, © Philippe Koutouzis
T'ang Haywen 曾海文
T’ang Boogie 曾海文舞曲
1973
T’ang Boogie is a 1973 moving-image collaboration between the Paris-based painter T’ang Haywen and the New York–based filmmaker Tom Tam. Both born in China, the artists met in 1972 while traveling in Goa, India, a coastal hub of counterculture. During the trip, the pair also produced Furen Boogie, a short film set on the beach. The two works are early examples of experimental film by Chinese artists.
In two and a half minutes, T’ang Boogie shuffles through a series of black-and-white ink paintings characteristic of T’ang’s practice. Whitish sheets marked by gestural black brushstrokes are interspersed with fully black frames, producing strobe-like flashes. The painted shapes remain abstract even as their rapid-fire sequencing evokes both movement and communication. One minute in, the film slows its pace, pausing for several seconds on an image that resembles an open eye. As the work concludes, the paintings disappear even more quickly, layering onto one another before being replaced by pervasive blackness.
In two and a half minutes, T’ang Boogie shuffles through a series of black-and-white ink paintings characteristic of T’ang’s practice. Whitish sheets marked by gestural black brushstrokes are interspersed with fully black frames, producing strobe-like flashes. The painted shapes remain abstract even as their rapid-fire sequencing evokes both movement and communication. One minute in, the film slows its pace, pausing for several seconds on an image that resembles an open eye. As the work concludes, the paintings disappear even more quickly, layering onto one another before being replaced by pervasive blackness.
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