In fall 2022, renowned auteur Tsai Ming-Liang is visiting Chicago, DC, Boston, and NYC, alongside major retrospectives.
A leading filmmaker of contemporary Chinese-language cinema, Tsai Ming-Liang has produced one of the most striking cinematic oeuvres of the past quarter-century. Malaysian by birth, Taiwanese by residence, internationally funded but belonging to nowhere in particular, Tsai’s moody, pensive, deadpan films are haunted by loss, failure, and broken attachments. But these films are not mere exercises in nostalgia: collaging the fragments of contemporary life into a cinema of alienation, precarity, and queerness, Tsai’s slow style and serial characters iterate and interrogate all the ways attachment falls short amid the austerity, inequality, and increasing uncertainty rapidly proliferating in the margins of modernity.
Tsai’s muse, Lee Kang-Sheng, stars in every film as Tsai’s alter ego, Hsiao-Kang (“Little Wealth”), a transient protagonist working job after unstable job on the abject underside of the fast and flashy global economy. Wayward encounters, unorthodox intimacies, and inarticulate desires give way to austere, surreal tableaus: shots and scenes extend for many minutes, producing a cinema as intense and precise as it is diffuse and disorganized. Individually, the films flirt with formlessness, but are threaded together by recurrent motifs—phone booths, flooded apartments, mysterious ailments, glowing screens, cockroaches, mumbled meals, lost keys, spiritual possession, and watermelons. Tsai Ming-Liang’s films amplify, reinforce, and refract one another—exploring the incoherence structuring our attachments to objects and others.
From September 30, 2022 through October 25, 2022, Tsai Ming-Liang (director), Lee Kang-Sheng (actor), Anong Houngheuangsy (actor), and Claude Wang (producer) will be joining the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Doc Films, and the Block Museum in Chicago; the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in DC; the Harvard Film Archive in Boston; and the MoMA in New York City—Tsai Ming-Liang’s first visit to the US in over a decade. This tour will feature: the US premiere of Improvisations on the Memory of Cinema, an artist talk reflecting on his career following a screening of Goodbye, Dragon Inn that premiered at Venice; a retrospective of several of Tsai Ming-Liang’s films at the Freer and Sackler; a full retrospective at MoMA; a retrospective of his recent films at the Harvard Film Archive; an artist talk at SAIC’s Visiting Artist Program; a talk on the Walker series at the Freer and Sackler; a panel on the Walker series at the Block; a panel with scholar Paola Iovene at Doc Films on Light and Your Face; and more!
This event began in 2020—with Tsai Ming-Liang’s first Chicago retrospective at Doc Films and the US premiere of the DCP restoration of Goodbye, Dragon Inn—until Tsai Ming-Liang’s visit was postponed by COVID. We’re excited to be back!
Chicago
GOODBYE DRAGON INN (不散, BU SAN)
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2022, 8PM
Gene Siskel Film Center
164 N. State Street, Chicago, IL
Tickets
Stray Dogs (郊遊, Jiao You)
Monday, September 19, 2022, 8pm
Gene Siskel Film Center
164 N. State Street, Chicago, IL
Tickets
DAYS (日子, RIZI)
Monday, September 26, 2022, 8pm
Gene Siskel Film Center
164 N. State Street, Chicago, IL
Tickets
JOURNEY TO THE WEST (西遊, XIYOU)
NO NO SLEEP (無無眠, WU WU MIAN)
Friday, September 30, 2o22 6:30PM
Following the screening, Tsai Ming-Liang and Lee Kang-Sheng will appear for a discussion moderated by Dr. Jean Ma, professor of Film and Media Studies at Stanford University.
Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University
40 Arts Cir Dr., Evanston, IL
blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/cinema/
LIGHT (光, GUANG)
YOUR FACE (你的臉, NI DE LIAN)
Saturday, October 1, 2022, 6PM
Chicago premiere screenings of LIGHT and YOUR FACE will be followed by a panel discussion with Tsai Ming-Liang and Lee Kang-Sheng, moderated by Paola Iovene (University of Chicago).
Doc Films, Max Palevsky Cinema, University of Chicago
1212 East 59th St., Chicago, IL
docfilms.org/tsai
Tsai Ming Liang Visitng Artist Lecture
Monday, October 3, 2022, 6PM
Lecture by director Tsai Ming-Liang followed by an audience Q&A.
FREE! Tickets must be obtained in person at the Gene Siskel Film Center box office one hour prior to the presentation start time.
164 N. State Street, Chicago, IL
saic.edu/events/tsai-ming-liang
DC
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art.
Films are shown free of charge in the three hundred-seat Meyer Auditorium at the Freer Gallery of Art. Seating is first come, first served. Auditorium doors open approximately thirty minutes before show time.
1050 Independence Ave SW, Washington, DC
Days*
Thursday, October 6, 2022, 7pm
*In person: Tsai Ming-Liang, Lee Kang-Sheng, Anong Houngheuangsy
Goodbye, Dragon Inn*
Friday, October 7, 2022, 7pm
*In person: Tsai Ming-liang, Lee Kang-Sheng
Improvisations on the memory of cinema*
Friday, October 7, 2022, 8:30pm
*Performance by Tsai Ming-Liang
I Don’t want to sleep alone
Friday, October 14, 2022, 7pm
What time is it there? +
The SkyWalk is gone
Sunday, October 16, 2022, 4pm
Stray dogs
Friday, October 21, 2022, 7pm
Journey to the west +
No Form
Sunday, October 23, 2022, 4pm
Boston
Harvard Film Archive
24 Quincy Street Cambridge, MA 02138
Full program and tickets available at: https://harvardfilmarchive.org/programs/the-face-of-time-recent-films-by-tsai-ming-liang
Stray Dogs
Friday, September 30, 2022, 7pm
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
Saturday, October 1, 2022, 7pm
Dragon Inn
Saturday, October 1, 2022, 9pm
Walker + NO NO SLEEP
Monday, October 3, 2022, 7pm
Your Face
Sunday, October 9, 2022, 7pm
Afternoon*
Monday, October 10, 2022, 6pm
*In person: Tsai Ming-liang, Lee Kang-Sheng,
DAys*
Friday, October 14, 2022, 7pm
*In person: Tsai Ming-liang, Lee Kang-Sheng, and Anong Houngheuangsy
I DON’t WANT TO SLEEP ALONE
Friday, October 21, 2022, 7pm
New York
MoMA will present a retrospective of 14 of Tsai Ming-Liang’s films, a premiere of Face, and a performance of Improvisations on the Memory of Cinema.
11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY
Bio
Born in Malaysia in 1957, Tsai Ming-Liang is one of the most prominent film directors of the new cinema movement in Taiwan. In 1994, his film Vive L’ amour was awarded the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, and this helped establish a place for him in the world of international film. In 2009, Face became the first film to be included in the collection of the Louvre Museum’s “Le Louvre s'offre aux cineastes.” It has since become the benchmark for films venturing into the world of art galleries. In recent years, Tsai Ming-Liang has also moved on to installation art. His works have been well-received in Venice, Shanghai, Nagoya. At the invitation of the National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center in 2011, Tsai returned to theater performance with three monodramas, entitled Only You, after 27 years of absence. Since 2012, he has been working on a long project to film Lee Kang-Sheng's slow walk, cooperating with various cities and organizations. To date, he has completed seven short works. His latest full-length feature "Stray Dogs" (2013) was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 70th Venice Film Festival. In 2014, he presented the critically acclaimed theater work The Monk from Tang Dynasty in arts festivals in Brussels, Vienna and Taipei. That same year, Tsai made history by bringing his movie Stray Dogs at the Museum at MoNTUE, the Museum of National Taipei University of Education.
Partners
The Tsai Ming-Liang 2020 program is organized by independent programmer J. Michael Eugenio, Tom Vick of the National Museum of Asian Art, La Frances Hui of the MoMA, Alex Kong and Serin Lee of Doc Films, Andrea Pierro of the Visiting Artist Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Michael Metzger and Malia Haines-Stewart of Block Museum, scholar Jean Ma, Paola Iovene of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago, Caren Wu and Kanglan Chin of the Taipei Cultural Center in New York, and Sabina Shie of TECO Chicago—in collaboration with Tsai Ming-Liang and his producer Claude Wang. The program is supported by Taipei Cultural Center in New York, with local support in Chicago from the Center for East Asian Studies and TECO Chicago; and in DC from TECO DC.
The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 celebrate creativity, openness, tolerance, and generosity. They aim to be inclusive places—both onsite and online—where diverse cultural, artistic, social, and political positions are welcome. They’re committed to sharing the most thought-provoking modern and contemporary art, and hope you will join them in exploring the art, ideas, and issues of our time.
Founded in 1935 as the Film Library, MoMA’s film collection now includes more than 30,000 films and 1.5 million film stills; the strongest international film collection in the United States, it incorporates all periods and genres.
A division of Harvard Library, the Harvard Film Archive is dedicated to the collection, preservation and exhibition of film. It maintains an extensive archive of over 40,000 motion picture prints, audiovisual elements and ephemera from around the world and from almost every period in film history. Located in the historic Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts on the Harvard University campus, the HFA cinematheque is renowned for its diverse programming of films which—due to age, rarity, challenging content or format—are not screened regularly or often even available for viewing at all. Further enhancing the cinematic experience, the HFA regularly invites filmmakers to discuss their work after screenings. The 188-seat theater accommodates DCP, 35mm, 16mm, Super 8 and all variety of video formats.
As the National Museum of Asian Art, the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery preserve, exhibit, and interpret Asian art in ways that deepen our understanding of Asia, America, and the world.
Experience multiple perspectives on Asia through the lens of classic and contemporary film. The National Museum of Asian Art’s world-class film series offers opportunities to see films not widely available in the United States, as well as to meet directors, actors, and film scholars.
Doc Films is the nation’s oldest continuously operating film society. Doc screens all kinds of films, from canonical classics to indie gems to Hollywood blockbusters, often featuring films that can’t be seen elsewhere. Films screen every day of the academic year in Doc’s fully equipped and state-of-the-art theater, each night of the week dedicated to a particular theme throughout the quarter. Besides regular screenings, Doc hosts a variety of special events, such as conversations with directors, faculty members, critics, or other experts as well as sneak previews and student films. Doc is exclusively run by volunteers who manage every aspect from programming film series to projecting films.
Tickets to all shows are only $7 each—or, buy a season pass for $40 to get unlimited access to every one of the calendar’s 70+ films. The full calendar can be found on their website:
The Visiting Artists Program is a public forum that features today's most influential practitioners and thinkers. Founded in 1868, the Visiting Artists Program is one of the oldest public programs of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Formalized in 1951 with the establishment of an endowed fund by Flora Mayer Witkowsky, the Visiting Artists Program has featured over 1,000 international artists, designers, and scholars representing more than 70 countries through a diverse mix of lectures, screenings, conversations, and readings. The Visiting Artists Program provides a platform for innovative ideas that inspire and educate.
An invaluable resource for SAIC students, the Visiting Artists Program is central to SAIC's interdisciplinary curriculum. In addition to public lectures, visitors directly engage with SAIC students through studio critiques and roundtable discussions, fostering a greater understanding and appreciation of contemporary art and culture.
The Block is a dynamic, imaginative, and innovative teaching and learning resource for Northwestern and its surrounding communities, featuring a global exhibition program that crosses time periods and cultures and serves as a springboard for thought-provoking discussions relevant to our lives today. The museum also commissions new work by artists to foster connections between artists and the public through the creative process. Each year, the Block mounts exhibitions; organizes and hosts lectures, symposia, and workshops involving artists, scholars, curators, and critics; and screens classic and contemporary films at its in-house cinema. The museum also reaches national and international audiences through its traveling exhibitions, publications and website. Its growing permanent collection of approximately 6,000 works focuses primarily on prints, photography, and drawings.
The Taipei Cultural Center is primarily responsible for planning, promoting, and implementing a variety of arts activities, as well as supervising the operation of Taipei Gallery and Taipei Theater. The Cultural Center has played a significant role in enhancing Taiwan's cultural image and promoting international cultural exchanges. To cope with the new trend of global cultural competition, the Taipei Cultural Center, expanding beyond just New York City, has been actively bringing Taiwan's cultures to North America.
The Taipei Cultural Center provided funding for Tsai Ming-Liang’s visit.
Established in 2000, Homegreen Films is led by professional Asian filmmakers including Tsai Ming-liang, Lee Kang-sheng, and Claude Wang. Its objective is to develop films that have global perspective and originality.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago (TECO in Chicago) provides consular services, news about Taiwan, economics/trade and cultural information. TECO in Chicago’s jurisdiction include seven states in the Midwest which are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.There are multiple divisions providing services in TECO in Chicago which include the Consular division, Education division, Economic division, Press division, and the Cultural Center of TECO.
The current Director General of TECO in Chicago is Johnson Chiang.
TECO in Chicago provided funds for the Doc Films retrospective and is one of the hosts for the January 17 opening reception, as well as Tsai Ming-Liang’s April symposium at the University of Chicago.
The Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago (CEAS) is an interdisciplinary nexus, clearinghouse, and resource for academic exploration and support related to the study of China, Japan, and Korea. For over 60 years, its mission has been to nurture scholarship of the highest level across the humanities and social sciences, and to facilitate deeper understanding of the region at the University of Chicago and beyond.
CEAS provided funds for the Doc Films retrospective and is one of the hosts for the January 17 opening reception, as well as Tsai Ming-Liang’s April symposium at the University of Chicago.
