LONDON.- Heman Chong is an artist and writer whose work is located at the intersection between image, performance, situations and writing. His work continuously interrogates the many functions of the production of narratives in our everyday lives. For his South London Gallery show, Chong presents a diverse but coherent group of works that probe ideas of exchange, and the role of rules and regulations in determining codes of behaviour.

Monument to the people we've conveniently forgotten (I hate you), a million blacked out business cards covering the floor of the main gallery space, sets the scene for Chong’s exploration and exposure of different modes of exchange in everyday life. The excess and repetition in this work, characteristic of much of Chong’s practice, is carried through to Surfacing, a piece which has had more than 12 iterations to date, and for which thousands of stickers were installed high on the wall according to a loose set of instructions, allowing for a work to have multiple interpretations by people who install the work, within a restrictive set of parameters.

Presiding over the space, a small but pervasive sign instructs us that THIS PAVILION IS STRICTLY FOR COMMUNITY BONDING ACTIVITIES ONLY. The sign, an exact reproduction of one that Chong encountered in a public space in Singapore, is emblematic of an authoritarian voice and way of governance that extensively utilises a system of absolutes: 'You must do this and not that, because it is something I imagine, is good for you.’

A wall of sixty-six paintings have been selected from three painting series; Cover (Versions), Things That Remain Unwritten and Emails from Strangers. Representations of books and spam emails interwoven with purely abstract designs plays further on the unavoidable association, however intangible, between simultaneous visitors to the gallery space. Randomly arranged on the wall, the paintings reveal a snapshot of some of Chong’s cultural points of reference, inviting visitors to navigate and hone in on their own, opening up the possibly of discussing them with others.

Four new works have been produced for this exhibition. The first, Inclusion(s) occurs in the gallery shop where second-hand copies of novels have been collected and made available for redistribution, providing further entry points into Chong’s ways of reading the world. The second piece, Rope, Barrier, Boundary, appropriates a rope with metal hooks which is used in museums and spaces where art is shown. Extending this rope, Chong produces a space, isolating an area at one end of the main gallery which becomes a notional stage for the third new work; an intimate and intense performance entitled An Arm, A Leg. Every Wednesday at 1pm and 5pm a different participant is taught by an instructor to memorise and recite a 500 word short story written by the artist and only ever transmitted by word of mouth.

The collaborative nature of this piece, central to so much of Chong’s work, continues in the fourth commission, Writing, Rooms, an informal residency programme for fiction writers in the first floor galleries. The two spaces are occupied for ten weeks by Mira Mattar, and a collaboration between Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams, who are working on their own projects throughout the course of the exhibition. Chong invited the writers to develop texts they were already working on, creating a continuum undisrupted by the hosting institution. At the end of the residency they have been asked to publish an excerpt of their writings and hold a public conversation to discuss their experiences.

Some of Chong’s past works include LEM1 (A Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Store), 2001, an installation of second hand science fiction books that were available to purchase, effectively creating a shop in an art gallery and transforming the exhibition-viewing experience into one of exchange of goods and money. Calendars (2020-2096), 2011, was made over a period of seven years when Chong collected more than 1001 images of publicly accessible areas in Singapore, devoid of humans, to create a dystopian narrative set within familiar yet unsettling scenes of a possible future. Another work, Interview(s), 2012, was a sculptural collaboration initiated by Chong with artist Anthony Marcellini whereby a set of seven statements functioned as parameters by which each artist put together their own collection of 100 objects over a six-month period. They then came together to install them within three days on mirrored tables in accordance with another set of rules to make the exhibition.

Heman Chong (b. 1977) is an artist and writer whose work is located at the intersection between image, performance, situations and writing. His work continuously interrogates the many functions of the production of narratives in our everyday lives.

In 2014, he co-founded Stationary with Christina Li. A collection of stories published by Spring Workshop, defined as a recess from their own practices, Stationary invites artists, curators and writers to take stock, chart and elaborate on their obsessions, fascinations and influences within a suspended temporal moment.

In 2006, he produced a writing workshop with Leif Magne Tangen at Project Arts Center in Dublin where they co-authored PHILIP, a science fiction novel, with Mark Aerial Waller, Cosmin Costinas, Rosemary Heather, Francis McKee, David Reinfurt and Steve Rushton. He has produced solos exhibitions at Art Sonje Center, Gallery Em, P!, FOST Gallery, Michael Janssen Gallery, The Reading Room Bangkok, Future Perfect, Wilkinson Gallery, Rossi & Rossi, SOTA Gallery, NUS Museum, Kunstverein Milano, Motive Gallery, Hermes Third Floor, Vitamin Creative Space, Art In General, Project Arts Centre, Ellen de Bruijne Projects, The Substation, Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien and Sparwasser HQ.

In 2015, he has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including expo zero, Tate Modern, Take me (I’m yours), Monnaie de Paris, The Great Ephemeral, New Museum, Time of Others, The National Museum of Art in Osaka, When we share more than ever, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Moves & Countermoves: On Sweat, Paper, and Porcelain, CCS Bard/Hessel Museum, Medium at Large, Singapore Art Museum.

He has participated in numerous international biennales including 20th Sydney Biennale (2016), 10th Gwangju Biennale (2014), Asia Pacific Triennale 7 (2012), Performa 11 (2011), Momentum 6 (2011), Manifesta 8 (2010), 2nd Singapore Biennale (2008), SCAPE Christchurch Biennale (2006), Busan Biennale (2004), 10th India Triennale (2000) and represented Singapore in the 50th Venice Biennale (2003). In January 2016, a major solo exhibition If, Ands, or Buts will be presented at Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai and is curated by its Senior Curator, Li Qi. A new monographic volume on Chong’s practice by M+ Chief Curator, Doryun Chong, is currently in progress in conjunction with his 2015 solo exhibition, Never, A Dull Moment at Art Sonje Center, Seoul.