Alif the Unseen, Elizabeth Costello, A Personal Anthology, Deliverance, 2015

GLOBAL ART TALK 012 “Ifs, Ands, or Buts” by Heman Chong (Artist)
The practice of Heman Chong is internationally recognised as one that moves fluidly between image making, writing and performance, and is symptomatic of post-conceptual, post-studio practices of artists of his generation.
“This lecture begins with a work that I didn’t make (it was an accident) and ends with a performance involving sentences I didn’t write (other artists did). In between, I would like to discuss a number of things that has passed through my eyes, hands and mind that have become a substantial part of what most people consider a part of my work; novels, bookshops, libraries, trees, calendars, postcards, words, stories, situations, exhibitions, time, texts, magazines, conferences, memories, translations, rumours, relationships, resistance, speech, secrets, distributions, bridges. This discussion will take place via deconstructing 10-15 works that I have made since 2003”(Heman Chong).

About the Talk

Time/Date: 19:00-20:30 2018.10.26.Fri
Venue: Ningenkan room NA102, Kyoto University of Art and Design
https://www.kyoto-art.ac.jp/en/about-us/location/
Admission:Free (Booking required)
Seating Capacity:100
*English>Japanese consecutive translation available
Organized by: Kyoto University of Art and Design, Graduate School of Art and Design Studies / Higashiyama Artists Placement Service(HAPS)

About the Speaker

Heman Chong is an artist whose work is located at the intersection between image, performance, situations and writing. He has held solo exhibitions at Art Sonje Center (Never, A Dull Moment, 2015), South London Gallery (An Arm, A Leg and Other Stories, 2015), Rockbund Art Museum (Ifs, Ands, Or Buts, 2016), 72-13 (Because, the Night, 2017), Calle Wright (Never is a Promise, 2018), Rossi & Rossi (Abstracts from The Straits Times, 2018), Swiss Institute (Legal Bookshop (Shanghai), 2018). He is the co-director and founder (with Renée Staal) of ‘The Library of Unread Books’. He is currently working on a novel ‘The Book of Drafts’ which will be published by Polyparenthesis in 2019.

Booking&Inquiries

For Booking and Inquiries:(GLOBAL_ARTTALK@office.kyoto-art.ac.jp
*Please send 1.Name, 2.Number of participants, 3.Phone number or email address, 4.Occupation (for student, please note the school name./for KUAD student, add the student ID)

GLOBAL ART TALK BY KUAD x HAPS

Connecting Kyoto and the World through Contemporary Art
The environment surrounding contemporary art has become vastly more complex over the past few decades. Faced with this situation, it is no easy task for artists to find a way to be active at a global level. Naturally, it is virtually impossible to get a firm grasp on the art scenes that are being produced concurrently all over the world. In particular, in neighboring Asian countries that are seeing rapid economic growth and modernization, there are more opportunities than ever before to show one’s work, taking into account the new art museums and art fairs that are being established, and the flourishing numbers of international exhibitions. Although global attention focused on this region has increased, the situation is quite different in Japan, where there is a general sense that the work of developing art-related institutions has been finished. However, it is precisely this state of affairs that has led to a renewed questioning of how global networks are constructed, a reconsideration of how institutionalization works, and the role of artists in society.
In Kyoto, art schools produce a large number of new artists each year. But what kinds of connections might one discover today between this center of traditional Japanese culture and the world of contemporary art that has grown ever more complex in this way? “Global Art Talk,” presented by HAPS and Kyoto University of Art and Design, is a program where internationally active artists, curators, collectors, researchers, and gallerists, among others, are invited, and, through a series of dialogues, strives to provide a global perspective as well as deepen understanding. (Until last year it ran under the title of “ULTRA x HAPS.”)
The “GLOBAL ART TALK” is part of the Resident Curator Program of the Higashiyama Artist Placement Service (HAPS), which seeks to provide support to young emerging artists.
The Kyoto University of Art and Design is dedicated to establishing an institution that will foster artists from Kyoto who aim to work in the contemporary art world at a global level.

Images

The Ruined Map / Kobo Abe (2), 2010

The Straits Times, Thursday, September 16, 2010, Cover, 2018