“Peace and health – this is my journey as an artist,” Jon Tsoi says. “It’s who I am as a human being.” Tsoi says his art is guided by the Tao, an eastern philosophy meant to harmonize human life with the natural state of the universe. The exhibition is titled War and Witness, running through December 21 at Whitebox Gallery in the East Village. Could anything be timelier, given the current state of international affairs?
Tsoi, who is trained both as an artist and in Chinese medicine, is intriguing to some and baffling to others when he performs. The artist-mariner-adventurer Reid Stowe told me, “The first time I saw Jon Tsoi perform was at the Copacabana. I thought an insane person had jumped onstage.” Dressed in camouflage, blindfolded, shouting “End war now,” or something similar in heavily accented English, that reaction to a Tsoi performance is not unreasonable. Jon Tsoi is different, that’s for sure.
While blindfolded, Tsoi sometimes attacks canvases with large rocks (or small boulders), knives, hammers and so on. He is unabashed about people’s reactions. “I perform with a blindfold because it allows the energy of the universe flow through me more freely,” he explains. His paintings, which fit into the continuum of expressionism, are much more approachable. The paintings are the heart of the current exhibition. A number of them incorporate actual money into the compositions. Tsoi says this is to point out the undeniable connection between war and money. The art writer Anthony Haden-Guest is the curator of the exhibition, along with the founder and artistic director of White Box Gallery Juan Puntes.
“Jon Tsoi makes powerful and unusual performances that result in powerful and unusual works of art,” says Haden-Guest. As startling as Tsoi’s performances can be, it’s less than surprising that White Box Gallery, which is a not-for-profit, is hosting the exhibit. It is a hotbed of radical art by a slate of international artists whose art encompasses both performance and visual expression.
White Box Gallery was founded in Chelsea at the turn of the millennium. It subsequently relocated to Chinatown, then Harlem, and then to its current location on Avenue B just above Houston Street. White Box was conceived in response to what was perceived as the New York-centric art scene’s lack of emphasis on social, political and international art engagement.
White Box developed a stream of potent site-specific work and survey exhibitions, and became a thriving laboratory for unique commissions, exhibitions, special events, salon series, and outreach programs meant to serve the entire community of New York City, especially underserved minorities, rather than catering to a plutocratic elite. At its current location, as in the past, the gallery offers programs emphasizing youth education in the arts, urban sustainability and emigrè and ex-pat feminist progressive curatorial programs, according to gallery director Puntes.
Performance art, curated by Yohanna Roa, is presented in three spaces at White Box. Sometimes performances take place on the sidewalk in front of the gallery. Other times visitors can enjoy performances in the actual gallery space. Another favorite is the large courtyard behind the gallery.
It was Anthony Haden-Guest who first introduced Tsoi to the gallery. Soon, Puntes became Jon Tsoi’s champion, so to speak, and over the years has arranged exhibitions for the artist in museums and prominent galleries throughout the world.
In 2017, drawing on his background in Chinese medicine, Tsoi did a four-day blindfolded performance titled “Art Diagnosis and Diagnosis for Art” at the Queens Museum. He used a series of paintings and a process of elimination to diagnose maladies possibly afflicting volunteers from the audience.
“I was one hundred per cent accurate,” he says. “By using art as holistic medicine, we can all benefit from the mystery of art, balancing ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually. Worship the unnamable and unexpected art – the Yin – yet embrace and be indiscriminate towards all art – the Yang. Observe the world and one’s outer surroundings, yet trust one’s inner vision and intuition,” Tsoi says, citing his roots in Taoist thought and action.
Tsoi was born in Sichuan province, China. His parents, both doctors of Chinese medicine, recognized and encouraged his artistic talent. But Mao’s repressive Cultural Revolution led to Tsoi being interned on a collective farm after he finished high school. Of his time as a farm worker, he says simply, “It toughened me up and made me able to endure. That harsh environment became a positive force, instilling in me the will to never give up.” Then he adds, “But they ruined the youth for a whole generation.”
Eventually, Tsoi was able to leave China when an uncle arranged a visa for the young man to study art in New York. From his seat in a jetliner descending over the city, Tsoi saw his future brighten. “I saw New York City from that airplane window, and I knew that this place was my destiny. I would be a happy artist here.” That vision of good fortune sustained him over the years.
Tsoi studied at the Art Students League and elsewhere. Eventually, he also became a doctor of Chinese medicine, following in the family tradition.
His current exhibition at White Box opened on November 26 with a potent, if typical, Jon Tsoi performance. While a soft-spoken American voice read from The Way of the Tao, Tsoi donned a blindfold and attacked pressboard panels covered with collage and red paint. The panels were created during a sidewalk performance decrying war in front of the gallery, on Election Night. “I don’t care about any politicians,” the artist told me that evening. “I care about peace and health.” At the opening of his solo exhibit, Tsoi scraped and pounded the panels until several fell off the wall.
This most recent performance could be interpreted in the context of media versus reality – electronic babbling while war rages. It could also be seen as an absence of context, of accepting that there is no context for the current state of the world, in which the lame duck Biden administration – whomever is running things – continues its posturing and escalating war mongering in Ukraine, regardless of the electorate’s indisputable refutation of its policies. Whatever one’s interpretation, Tsoi wants people to reflect and to choose peace. In this context, it’s comforting that Jon Tsoi dares to be different.
The current exhibition, which includes paintings and videos, runs through December 21. Tsoi will perform again during the evening on December 17. For more information, please check the gallery website whiteboxnyc.org.
Jon Tsoi: War and Witness, Through December 21, White Box Gallery, 9 Avenue B
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