Description
Tommy Kha: Half, Full, Quarter weaves together self-portraits and classically bucolic landscapes punctuated by the traces of East Asian stories embedded in the topography of the American South.
In this first major monograph, featuring almost a decade of work, Tommy Kha explores the highly personal psycho-geography of his hometown. As the artist states, "Memphis has become, for me, not only the place where I was raised but an active borderland between fantasy and memory, nostalgia and history, nonfiction and mythology." Memphis is where his mother, fleeing Vietnam in the early 1980s, settled, along with his extended family. Throughout the work, his mother emerges as a recurring character, sometimes the subject of quiet photographic study, and in others, a collaborative muse. "I'm a cut of my mom," Kha asserts, "Every photograph I make of her is a Half Self-Portrait." In snapshots drawn from a family album that serves as the one record of her journey to the United States, she is the source of nostalgia and barely captured memory. In assembling a visual account of the struggle to find his own voice and narrate the fragmented history of his family, Kha challenges the cultural amnesia around Asian lives and experiences in recent American histories. Acclaimed author Hua Hsu contributes an engaging essay, "People Need to Smile More," and MacArthur Fellow An-My Le conducts an incisive conversation with Kha that delves into his family history and artistic strategies.
Tommy Kha: Half, Full, Quarter is the result of the Next Step Award, a partnership between Aperture and Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York, in collaboration with the 7|G Foundation. An exhibition of the work will open at Baxter St in New York in February 2023.
About the Author
Tommy Kha (born in Memphis, 1988) lives and works between Brooklyn and Memphis. He received a BFA from Memphis College of Art in 2011 and an MFA from Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut, in 2013. In 2021, Kha received the Creator Labs Photo Fund and the Aperture-Baxter St Next Step Award. In 2022, he was named a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow. Kha has also held residencies at Light Work, New York; Celebrate the Studio at the International Studio & Curatorial Program, Brooklyn; Silver Art Projects, Manhattan; and Crosstown Arts, Memphis. He joined Higher Pictures Generation, New York, in 2022. Hua Hsu, a staff writer at the New Yorker, is an associate professor of English at Vassar College, and serves on the executive board of the Asian American Writer's Workshop. He is the author of Floating Chinaman: Fantasy and Failure across the Pacific (2016) and Stay True: A Memoir (2022). An-My Le is the Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor in the Arts at Bard College, New York. She has exhibited widely, including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Le has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and MacArthur Foundation. Her books include the Aperture titles Small Wars (2005), Events Ashore (2014), and On Contested Terrain (2020), which was published on the occasion of a major exhibition organized by Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. An-My Le is the Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor in the Arts at Bard College, New York. She has exhibited widely, including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Le has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and MacArthur Foundation. Her books include the Aperture titles Small Wars (2005), Events Ashore (2014), and On Contested Terrain (2020), which was published on the occasion of a major exhibition organized by Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.
Reviews
"'My work is about how much the landscape has been unkind to immigrants,' says Tommy Kha of his latest photo project, which captures the Asian diaspora in America with a surreal edge." -Tony Wilkes, AnOther magazine
"Kha's poignant photographs bring together his family's East Asian ancestry and everyday life in the American South, where found photographs, self-portraits and "half self-portraits" of his mother tell a story of displacement and shared identity."
Awards
Winner of The Next Step Award 2021 (United States) and En Foco Photography Fellowship Award 2016 (United States) and CR Photography Annual 2019 (UK). Joint winner of The Silver List 2021 (United States) and Foam Talent 2021 (Netherlands) and Creator Labs Photo Fund 2021 (United States) and NYFA Photography Fellowship 2022 (United States). Runner-up for Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship Finalist 2021 (United States) and Hyeres Festival Grand Prix Finalist 2019 (France).
Book Information
ISBN 9781597115438
Author Tommy Kha
Format Hardback
Page Count 172
Imprint Aperture
Publisher Aperture
Weight(grams) 1079g
In this first major monograph, featuring almost a decade of work, Tommy Kha explores the highly personal psycho-geography of his hometown. As the artist states, "Memphis has become, for me, not only the place where I was raised but an active borderland between fantasy and memory, nostalgia and history, nonfiction and mythology." Memphis is where his mother, fleeing Vietnam in the early 1980s, settled, along with his extended family. Throughout the work, his mother emerges as a recurring character, sometimes the subject of quiet photographic study, and in others, a collaborative muse. "I'm a cut of my mom," Kha asserts, "Every photograph I make of her is a Half Self-Portrait." In snapshots drawn from a family album that serves as the one record of her journey to the United States, she is the source of nostalgia and barely captured memory. In assembling a visual account of the struggle to find his own voice and narrate the fragmented history of his family, Kha challenges the cultural amnesia around Asian lives and experiences in recent American histories. Acclaimed author Hua Hsu contributes an engaging essay, "People Need to Smile More," and MacArthur Fellow An-My Le conducts an incisive conversation with Kha that delves into his family history and artistic strategies.
Tommy Kha: Half, Full, Quarter is the result of the Next Step Award, a partnership between Aperture and Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York, in collaboration with the 7|G Foundation. An exhibition of the work will open at Baxter St in New York in February 2023.
Exhibition Schedule
- Baxter St at CCNY, New York, February 8-March 22, 2023
- Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, January 27-May 7, 2023
Author Events
- Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York, New York City, 2/8/2023, 6:00 pm EDT
- The Kellen Auditorium at the New School, New York City, 2/16/2023, 7:00 pm EDT
- Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York, New York City, 3/4/2023, 1:00 pm EDT
- 2023 Photography Show Presented by AIPAD, New York City, 4/1/2023, 2:00 pm EDT
About the Author
Tommy Kha (born in Memphis, 1988) lives and works between Brooklyn and Memphis. He received a BFA from Memphis College of Art in 2011 and an MFA from Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut, in 2013. In 2021, Kha received the Creator Labs Photo Fund and the Aperture-Baxter St Next Step Award. In 2022, he was named a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow. Kha has also held residencies at Light Work, New York; Celebrate the Studio at the International Studio & Curatorial Program, Brooklyn; Silver Art Projects, Manhattan; and Crosstown Arts, Memphis. He joined Higher Pictures Generation, New York, in 2022. Hua Hsu, a staff writer at the New Yorker, is an associate professor of English at Vassar College, and serves on the executive board of the Asian American Writer's Workshop. He is the author of Floating Chinaman: Fantasy and Failure across the Pacific (2016) and Stay True: A Memoir (2022). An-My Le is the Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor in the Arts at Bard College, New York. She has exhibited widely, including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Le has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and MacArthur Foundation. Her books include the Aperture titles Small Wars (2005), Events Ashore (2014), and On Contested Terrain (2020), which was published on the occasion of a major exhibition organized by Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. An-My Le is the Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor in the Arts at Bard College, New York. She has exhibited widely, including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Le has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and MacArthur Foundation. Her books include the Aperture titles Small Wars (2005), Events Ashore (2014), and On Contested Terrain (2020), which was published on the occasion of a major exhibition organized by Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.
Reviews
"'My work is about how much the landscape has been unkind to immigrants,' says Tommy Kha of his latest photo project, which captures the Asian diaspora in America with a surreal edge." -Tony Wilkes, AnOther magazine
"Kha's poignant photographs bring together his family's East Asian ancestry and everyday life in the American South, where found photographs, self-portraits and "half self-portraits" of his mother tell a story of displacement and shared identity."
-Stefanie Li, Galerie magazine
"'These are mostly from the book, but also thinking a lot about the Southern landscape," [Kha] says, referring to Half, Full, Quarter, his first monograph, published this February by the prestigious photo-centric publisher Aperture." -Chris McCoy, Memphis magazine
"The artist makes wry commentaries on the immigrant experience using scattered visual fragments, from the depths of Tennessee's Chinatown to the fishing communities of rural Vietnam. A new book and exhibition prove there's method to the melange." -Larissa Pham, British Journal of Photography
"Kha's layered portraits, still lifes, and landscapes exist alongside his mother's own photographs. The collaborative world between mother and son expands." -Harley Wong, Artforum
"Together, they form a picture not just of his family or how they made a home in the South but of how important humor, placemaking and ultimately photography are to Kha's understanding of this region." -Michael Adno, The New York Times
"'Ghost Bites' maps the psycho-geography of a fractured self; of all the losses, phantoms, and questions that emerge from the diasporic lineage." -Jacinda Tran, The Amp
Awards
Winner of The Next Step Award 2021 (United States) and En Foco Photography Fellowship Award 2016 (United States) and CR Photography Annual 2019 (UK). Joint winner of The Silver List 2021 (United States) and Foam Talent 2021 (Netherlands) and Creator Labs Photo Fund 2021 (United States) and NYFA Photography Fellowship 2022 (United States). Runner-up for Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship Finalist 2021 (United States) and Hyeres Festival Grand Prix Finalist 2019 (France).
Book Information
ISBN 9781597115438
Author Tommy Kha
Format Hardback
Page Count 172
Imprint Aperture
Publisher Aperture
Weight(grams) 1079g
