The Book Cover series

2009 - Painting (Painting)

Dimensions vary

Heman Chong

year born: 1977
gender: male
nationality: Singaporean
home town: Muar, Malaysia

With a habit of reading eight to ten books at the same time, Chong paints his two-foot tall novel covers through referencing an extensive reading list (accessible on Facebook) he has kept since 2006. Entitled “Bibliography (1): The Lonely Ones,” the list outlines representations of solitude that has been imposed on individuals or communities. Chong divides these archetypes into three over-arching notions: the Hide-away, the Castaway and the Prisoner. A novella from Stephen King’s Different Seasons collection, Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption tells a story of assumed identities and prisoners’ escape to reflect on the economic infrastructures inside and outside prison as well as the thin boundaries separating the two—in this case, a Rita Hayworth poster concealing a hole in the prison wall dug for jailbreak.


Heman Chong is an artist, curator, and writer who creates texts, objects, installations, and situations in order to investigate the manner through which individuals form associations between objects in their environments. Chong’s works have been considered “archetypally conceptual” and recall frameworks of the 1960s in their potential to address collective visions of futuristic utopias. Based largely on books, Chong’s works are striking in their creation of visual order as a means to draw out the “inevitably mnemonic nature of the conceptual object.”


Colors:



Flutter
© » KADIST

Zarouhie Abdalian

2010

The first iteration of Flutter was specifically conceived for the Pro Arts Gallery space in Oakland in 2010, viewable from the public space of a sidewalk, and the version acquired by the Kadist Collection is an adaptation of it...

La Ligne du Temps
© » KADIST

Valeska Soares

2012

Relying on repetition and repurposed materials, Soares works to interrogate time—its measurement, its passing, and its meaning...

Roca Carbón (Charcoal Rock)
© » KADIST

Mateo Lopez

2012

With Roca Carbón (Charcoal Rock, 2012) and Roca Grafito ( Graphite Rock , 2012), López plays with our relationship to inert and unremarkable objects such as rocks...

Hako
© » KADIST

Hiraki Sawa

2006

Hako (2006) depicts a mysterious and dystopic landscape where the world becomes flat: distance between different spaces, depth of field and three-dimensional perceptions are canceled...

Other related works, blended automatically  
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Calendars (2020-2096)
© » KADIST

Heman Chong

2012

The work Calendars is composed of 1001 images of deserted public areas in Singapore printed on pages of a calendar set from the year of 2020 until 2096...

Flutter
© » KADIST

Zarouhie Abdalian

2010

The first iteration of Flutter was specifically conceived for the Pro Arts Gallery space in Oakland in 2010, viewable from the public space of a sidewalk, and the version acquired by the Kadist Collection is an adaptation of it...

La Ligne du Temps
© » KADIST

Valeska Soares

2012

Relying on repetition and repurposed materials, Soares works to interrogate time—its measurement, its passing, and its meaning...

Converting
© » KADIST

Zai Kuning

2014

Converting is a piece about the Orang Laut, often called Sea Nomads, that inhabited the Riau archipelago...

Related works sharing similar palette  
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Must-see Paris exhibitions 2024: Abstract artist Fiona Rae's messages
© » FRANCE24

Must-see Paris exhibitions 2024: Abstract artist Fiona Rae's messages - arts24 Skip to main content Must-see Paris exhibitions 2024: Abstract artist Fiona Rae's messages Issued on: 23/01/2024 - 15:57 13:25 arts24 © FRANCE 24 By: Jennifer BEN BRAHIM | Marion CHAVAL | Magali FAURE | Eve JACKSON Follow | Loïc CHALAVON 1 min In this edition of arts24, Eve Jackson is joined by one of the most important abstract painters of her generation...

Make Hantus Great Again: Breaking Bread With the Undead
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Make Hantus Great Again: Breaking Bread With the Undead | ArtsEquator Skip to content "Make Hantus Great Again", Teatre Ekamatra's latest production, combines kooky supernatural characters with social commentary this Halloween...

50 Years of Hip Hop
© » AESTHETICA

Aesthetica Magazine - 50 Years of Hip Hop 50 Years of Hip Hop “I was watching a crowd, and everybody was waiting for the breaks to come in...

New Kurdish Flag
© » KADIST

Peter Friedl

2001

Peter Friedl’s projects place aesthetic questions within an expanded field that takes into account the social, political and philosophical context...

Other works by: » Heman Chong  
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Calendars (2020-2096)
© » KADIST

Heman Chong

2012

The work Calendars is composed of 1001 images of deserted public areas in Singapore printed on pages of a calendar set from the year of 2020 until 2096...

Related artist(s) to: Heman Chong » Cosmin Costinas, » Lee Kit, » Alexandre Singh, » Claire Fontaine, » Duan Jianyu, » Hans Ulrich Obrist, » Keren Cytter, » Leung Chi Wo, » Nedko Solakov, » Pak Sheung Chuen  
» see more

Foreigners Everywhere (Italian)
© » KADIST

Claire Fontaine

2006

Foreigners Everywhere is a series of neon signs in several different languages...

Tender
© » KADIST

Lee Kit

2012

The work Tender is composed of several elements: a porcelain spoon, a florescent lamp box, a small portable night light, a shelf with nearly invisible embossments of flowers and a jar of jam resting on a black plastic tray...

Nightmare-Wallpaper (No.DCCC901-16#8): An-Angel-in-Conversation-with-a-Young-Lady
© » KADIST

Pak Sheung Chuen

2017

The series Nightmare Wallpapers represents a shift if Chuen’s practice, allowing the artist to immerse himself in an “artistic pilgrimage of self healing” following the failure of the 2014 Umbrella Movement...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Keren Cytter

“Untitled” is inspired by the movie “Opening Night” by John Cassavetes with Gena Rowlands playing the role of a fallen woman, anguished by her distressed life...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
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Sans titre n°10 (Temps mort)
© » KADIST

Mohamed Bourouissa

2008

Temps Mort is the result of one year of mobile phone exchanges of still images and videos between the artist and a person incarcerated in prison...

Tadmur
© » KADIST

Majd Abdel Hamid

2019

Tadmur by artist Majd Abdel Hamid is influenced by a book by Mustafa Khalifa titled The Shell: Memoirs of a Hidden Observer , which details Khalifa’s imprisonment in the Assad ‘desert prison’ Tadmur...

‘It felt like being stripped naked’: the prisoners confronting their crimes with art
© » THE GUARDIAN

‘It felt like being stripped naked’: the prisoners confronting their crimes with art | Art | The Guardian Skip to main content Skip to navigation Skip to navigation An intense exploration of male role models … Man and Boy, Hunky Version at HMP Grendon...

Pasvang, Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison
© » KADIST

Mikhael Subotzky

2004

“Pasvang, Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison” is the result of three months Subotzky spent inside the walls of Pollsmoor Prison, an overcrowded correctional facility largely controlled by gangs...