Like Mangoes in July: The Work of Richard Fung

Ian C. Nelson is librarian emeritus and former assistant director of
libraries at the University of Saskatchewan Library. He is also
dramaturge for the Festival de la Dramaturgie des Prairies.

A product of the Ontario College of Art and Design and the University of
Toronto, Richard Fung is a video artist of international renown, and a
recipient of the Bell Canada Award for Lifetime Achievement in Video Art
and the Toronto Arts Award for Media Arts. For over 20 years he has also
made a name for himself as a public intellectual and cultural critic
with strong and sometimes controversial views on gay liberation, the
place of people of color in North American society, and Asian identity:
as a fourth-generation Chinese Trinidadian educated and well-ensconced
in Canada, he has a uniquely personal perspective on his scene. Critic
Cameron Bailey characterizes Fung’s 11 major videotapes as “pitched
somewhere between documentary and essay.”

Helen Lee and Kerri Sakamoto edited Like Mangoes in July to accompany a
recent retrospective of Fung’s work. It is a celebratory anthology in
which 30 contributors variously analyze the pieces, give background on
the making of the videotapes, and tell personal anecdotes about their
reactions to the artist and his work. As might be expected in the
celebration of a video artist, the essays include many pictures and
stills from his life and his art and an exquisitely fresh attention to
layout and typography. The contributors appear to have worked in
isolation; hence there is some repetition in subject (although always
with the contributor’s peculiar perspective). Some of the essays are
definitely geared toward the video specialist or the queer apologist. Of
most interest to general readers will be the biographical details and
images and the very useful videography.