Kunlin He and Yi Xin Tong: Going Outside

Going Outside is a duo exhibition of work by Kunlin He and Yi Xin Tong. These two exceptionally talented artists blend a variety of art genres from experimental documentary, music video and tapestry, to drone imagery, graffiti and Shan Shui drawing into expansive multi-media presentations. Their narrative and conceptual references are fluid, open-ended, transcultural and transhistorical. He’s and Tong’s resolve to find their own way and resist systems of control is bolstered by examples from the distant Chinese past: from the Xiaoxiang poetry and painting that pictured a retreat from civic life as an act of disagreement with the policies of the governing powers; to the benefits of reclusion, such as a solitary fisherman seeking solace in his boat, representative of the Confucian practice of withdrawal as a moral objection to the status quo. Yet, while there are layers of distancing in these works, there is also a deep desire to participate in a generation hyper-connected to the pulse of global culture—especially current theories on ecology and vernacular forms of youth media. 

He and Tong strive towards liberation from constraints in contemporary forms—with special attention to creating images of documented and invented landscapes marred by human interventions yet still regenerative and alive. Incorporating new digital technologies of the gaze into his explorations of the environment, He overlays fictions onto GPS-oriented scenes of place from the fire-destroyed semi-rural neighborhoods of California’s Marin County to a fictional biographical tour of his home town. Tong’s digital images document his new fascination for the fishing culture at little known sites along the shores of New York City. In both cases unruly, marginal and ravaged natural sites become symbols for the challenges of life’s journey. He’s and Tong’s works, while filled with feelings of displacement and a yearning to go outside and explore, refuse to give up on a sense of cultural belonging.

Kunlin He
Born in 1992 in Nanchang, China, Kunlin He currently lives in San Francisco, CA. His work focuses on redefining Asian identities, territories, borders, nationalisms, as well as Chinese masculinity in traditional art and philosophy, in his visual and media-based conceptual art. He is also interested in revealing the hybridity and heterogeneity of Chinese identities in the context of globalization, using the resources of East Asian traditional cultures and culture studies. He received a BFA in Environmental Design from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China in 2014, an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2016 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2018. He is a graduate fellow and affiliated artist at Headlands Center for the Arts (2017-2019). He has participated in several residencies including The Drawing Center, Ox-Bow School of Art; MASS MoCA; Atlantic Center for the Arts; Elsewhere Museum; and Santa Fe Art Institute.

Yi Xin Tong
Born in 1988 in Lushan, China, Yi Xin Tong is currently a New York-based artist, musician, and amateur fisherman. He received his BFA from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver in 2012 and MFA from New York University in 2014. Tong uses sculpture, installation, web project, video, and sound to create poetic and seemingly innocuous work to allude to the contradictions in life and to express dissent. His experience living on the outskirts of New York City lead him to a long-term multimedia fishing project that challenges the iconic image of that city as the pinnacle of human civilization. Tong has received a Canada Council for the Arts Project Grant and Joan Mitchell Foundation Scholarship.

About the curator
Betti-Sue Hertz is a contemporary art curator whose work focuses on the intersection of aesthetics and social issues. She has extensive experience in Chinese contemporary Art, having organized major exhibitions in her role as director of visual arts at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and as curator of contemporary art at San Diego Museum of Art. Hertz was a curator in residence at HOW Art Museum, Shanghai in 2018.