Devices connects the dots to construct and define an aspect of Chris Chong’s artistic practice. Consistently echoing artificial mimicries and calculated capital gains achieved through exploitative harnessing of ecological and human assets, the artist contemplates how this mechanization of nature reflects squarely on our integrity. As an example, in Botanic (2013), the artist deconstructed the sculptural structure of various species of decorative, plastic, flowering plants popular with Malaysian households with the help of professional botanical draughtsman. With Endemic (2015), the artist recreated robotic versions of extinct Bornean mountain flowers based on references of colonial era illustrations and field research photographs. Devices sees the artist dive deeper to unearth the systematic human management and motivation in the effective regulation and doctoring of the natural.
Chris is a Smithsonian Institute fellow (National Museum of Natural History) and a Ford Foundation fellow. He has also been awarded the 2019 Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Arts Fellowship in Italy. His works are in the public collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Singapore Art Museum.
Venue: Chan + Hori Contemporary, 6 Lock Road Gillman Barracks, #02-09 Singapore 108934
When: 26 - 27 Jan 2019, 2pm