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...

Making Chinatown
© » KADIST

Ming Wong

2012

Making Chinatown (2012) is a remake of Roman Polanski’s 1974 classic neo-noir film Chinatown ...

Automóvel
© » KADIST

Cinthia Marcelle

2012

Cinthia Marcelle’s video work Automóvel (2012) re-edits the mundane rhythms of automotive traffic into a highly compelling and seemingly choreographed meditation on sequence, motion, and time...

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...

20 Surrogates
© » KADIST

Allan McCollum

1982

In the work titled The Glossies (1980), an affinity for photography manifested itself before McCollum actually began to use photography as a medium...

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...

Asia Art Archive annual fundraiser auction
© » ARTOMITY

Asia Art Archive annual fundraiser auction – ARTOMITY 藝源 aaa2023auction.com Asia Art Archive (AAA)’s 2023 Annual Fundraiser features an auction of over 55 works, generously donated by artists, galleries, and individuals...

Quiz: How well do you know Southeast Asian films?
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Quiz: How well do you know Southeast Asian films? | ArtsEquator Skip to content While the works of Steven Spielberg, Wong Kar-wai and Bong Joon-ho have left a mark on the world, we should not forget our homeground talents, from the late Malaysian director Yasmin Ahmad, to Indonesian actor Iko Uwais, and father of Philippines cinema, José Nepomuceno...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Temps mort
© » KADIST

Mohamed Bourouissa

2009

The film called Temps Mort (Dead Time or Time Out) presents an exchange of short video footage assembled into one final edit...

Lynn Hershman Leeson, The San Quentin Mural Project, 1976
© » KADIST

Established by Lynn Hershman Leeson in 1975 and active through 1978, The Floating Museum commissioned and exhibited temporary, site-specific art in public spaces, first in the San Francisco Bay Area and then more widely in the United States, Italy, and France...