CANDICE MADEY to open Taoist Punk, the gallery’s second solo exhibition of Yi Xin Tong. Exhibiting works on paper, sculpture in resin and clay and a video installation, Taoist Punk explores Tong’s practice of “Metaphysical Kindness,” a mode of being in the world that the artist proposes to mend our relationship with nature.
Tong defines “Metaphysical Kindness” as a general goodwill that is not driven by goals nor values, but rather is rooted within an awareness of our limited knowledge of the world. His philosophy runs counter to human-focused environmentalism, seeking instead the powerful and poetic moments in which nature reclaims its place in the world. A core element of his life and art practice is time spent in spaces of urban wildness, where Tong witnesses the negotiations among species and the fissures between urbanization and primordial forces. The artist views places such as Steeplechase Pier in Coney Island, Jamaica Bay, Hudson Riverbank, and Breezy Point as integral extensions of his studio.
A new suite of watercolor, ink, and glue drawings depict abstract spatial interactions, continuing a series described by the artist as his Metaphysical Kindness drawings. The drawings originate with observations of the overlooked spaces of urban wilderness and capture the artist’s affinity with the playful unruliness of the outdoors. Back in the studio, works begin with a rough brush of pale color to cover the surface of the paper. He then “draws” with a resin-like glue, either left intact or removed to leave subtle tears in the paper’s surface. Subsequent pen marks are limited to blue, red, and black, which are technical colors to Tong—for writing, note-taking, and sketching. Marks read as calligraphic, at the intersection of representation, abstraction, and language. The series continues a body of work that originated at the Today Art Museum in Beijing in 2022, in which Tong adapted the linear forms of the drawings into large-scale laser projections.
In another body of wall-based sculptures made from resin and clay, Tong captures his observations of natural phenomena, urban detritus and marine life in layered works that suggest a sedimentary record of human activity. The tablet-esque forms are punctuated with rough-edged apertures, color planes, and uncanny text displays that simultaneously read as digital or archaic devices.
The show’s title, Taoist Punk, refers to a single-channel video installation at the center of the exhibition: Taoist Punk – Nocturnal Reveries of the Outdoors at a Desk (2023). The video renders specious, uncertain scenarios acted out in the dark of night in New York City. Utilizing artificial intelligence tools, Tong extracts and erases visual elements so that human movements pair with seascapes and marine creatures in the form of a pantomime. The edited choreography captures a seemingly natural symbiosis among species. Central to the work is the act of seeing in the dark. The artist renders material representations of illumination – presenting the glowing skins of extraordinary marine animals, or bonfires lighting up mulberry trees on the bank of the Hudson River. Monochromatic figures (drawn from video footage of workers repairing a wall in Tong’s apartment) and depictions of the artist himself move aqueously over shifting outdoor imagery. Tong views the imperceptible membrane between the figures and scenes as the fourth wall in theater, but in this case, the viewers are behind it, as if watching from backstage.
Taoist Punk – Nocturnal Reveries of the Outdoors at a Desk reflects the concept of “Taoist Punk,”
a term coined by Tong, which he has described as a metaphysical inquiry about wilderness that is
non-rational, ephemeral, and driven by curiosity and humor.
Yi Xin Tong, Taoist Punk, January 19th – March 2nd, 2024 CANDICE MADEY, 1 Rivington Street, New York
About the artist
Yi Xin Tong studied geology at China University of Geosciences and received his MFA in studio art from New York University. Tong’s work has been exhibited at CANDICE MADEY, New York and Chamber Fine Art (2023); the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2022); Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (2022); Today Art Museum, Beijing (2022); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2020); Long March Space, Beijing (2019/2016); chi K11 Museum, Shanghai (2019); National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung (2015). In 2021, he was the winner of the first Choi Foundation Prize for Contemporary Art, a Franco-Chinese art prize dedicated to contemporary creation and ecology. He works in New York, Vancouver, and
Shanghai.
