For Immediate Release :

THE END DEPENDS ON THE BEGINNING
THE BEGINNING DEPENDS ON THE END

Exhibition from May 22nd to July 13th, 2008
10:30am to 7:30pm daily, free admission
Third Floor-Hermès, 541 Orchard Road, Liat Towers

Inspired by the last paragraphs found in a selection of novels read in the past year, international conceptual artist and curator, Heman Chong continues with his investigation into the philosophies, reasons and methods of individuals and communities imagining the future. Charged with a conceptual drive, this research is then adapted into objects, images, installations, situations or texts.

Here, he is fascinated with the idea of the end of things (in this case, the end of a novel), utilizing both the form and content of these "book ends" to compose the series of objects on display at the Hermès Gallery in Singapore.

These books include Written on the Body (Jeanette Winterson), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami), The Woman in the Dunes (Kobo Abe), Foe (J.M. Coetzee), Star Maker (Olaf Stapledon), Roadside Picnic (Arkady & Boris Strugatsky), The Possibility of An Island (Michel Houellebecq) and Correction (Thomas Bernhard).

The End Depends On the Beginning. The Beginning Depends on the End. one will encounter a landscape of things, seemingly individual in their existence and yet highly interconnected with each other. These things are entirely devoid of any other colors except black, grey and white: a stark expression of Chong's inner world of science fiction, endless narratives and the failure of romance.

3000 self-adhesive stickers resembling location markers found on maps spread sporadically over a long wall. One can imagine each of these to represent a city, a person or even a point in time. A forest of artificial plants dripped over in thick black paint conjures an image of walking along a beach on a lush tropical night against the moonlight, watching the silhouettes of trees swaying in the wind. A corridor, intensely lit in white light leds to a mysterious door...

...somewhere else in the space, a dark star explodes.
 
This is the first solo presentation of Chong's work in Singapore since 2004. He was awarded the President's Young Talent Exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum in 2003 and the Young Artist Award by the National Arts Council in 2005. Chong represented Singapore at the Venice Biennale in 2003.

To date, he has held solo exhibitions at Vitamin Creative Space (Guangzhou, 2007), Art In General (New York, 2007), Project Arts Centre (Dublin, 2006), Ellen de Bruijne Projects (Amsterdam, 2005), Kunstbank (Berlin, 2004), Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin, 2003), Sparwasser HQ (Berlin, 2003).

Heman Chong is represented by Vitamin Creative Space.

This is exhibition is curated by Emi Eu and STPI.

This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The walls are exploding. The windows have turned into telescopes. Moon and stars are magnified in this room. The sun hangs over the mantelpiece. I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world. The world is bundled up in this room. Beyond the door, where the river is, where the roads are, we shall be. We can take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm. Hurry now, it's getting late. I don't know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fields.

Jeanette Winterson, from "Written on the Body"