Artwork still of Heman Chong’s ‘Perimeter Walk #33’. Image courtesy of the artist
Heman Chong: This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness is the first major survey exhibition by prolific multifaceted artist Heman Chong. Appropriated from Wikipedia’s defining terms and conditions related to the ever-changing nature of its online lists, the title announces its intentions from the get-go. The exhibition reflects and extends canonical works in his oeuvre to invite fresh perspectives on their meaning and relevance today.
Bringing together over 50 artworks and new commissions from the early 2000s to the present, the exhibition examines Chong’s (post)conceptual strategies and gestures, expressed through works that move through and between image, text, performance and situations. Across nine thematic rooms, visitors will experience how Chong employs everyday, commonplace objects and scenarios, from name cards, to books, newspapers, and photographs of public-accessible spaces, to confront contemporary geopolitics and the infrastructural ironies of our data-driven and networked society — all with a dose of Chong’s characteristic sharp wit. In a world of highly mediated landscapes where information is constantly being rewritten, the exhibition serves as a checkpoint for visitors to pause and consider how meaning is made and remade.
Venue: Level 1, Gallery 1, SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark
When: 10 May - 17 Aug 2025,
By: Singapore Art Museum (SAM)
