Heman Chong

Heman Chong’s new series of works The Silver Sessions represents a change in direction for the artist’s multidisciplinary oeuvre. A dialogue with the recipient is developed by means of seven individual objects; Heman Chong conveys the sense of being tied to a specific time, the transitory quality of the working situation that he experienced during his twelve months as an artist in residence in Berlin. Each individual work is devoted to a quite different aspect of the temporary role of an artist in residence: they are about initiation and insight, about flaws in the institutional system, or they document the artistic consequences of working with wornout computer equipment. After the installation by the Swiss artist duo Relax in November, the state and status of the institution itself is once again examined. Heman Chong, an expert in analysing and undermining institutional expectations of art and artists, requestions the position and function of the artistic calling within society.