Call it high-concept art, call it a joke, or call it ballsy — but you gotta admit that this piece of work by local artist Heman Chong makes for one amazing conversation starter.
After all, when you have a USD225 (SGD317) artwork that’s essentially a scanned image of Chong’s iPad, it’s bound to get tongues wagging.
The print is titled Singtel / 64% / 13:59 / Monday 6 July / Slide to Unlock because that’s exactly what it says on the iPad when it was scanned. It’s exclusively sold on online gallery The Artling, and they’ll even frame up the print nicely for USD365.
Again, we have to point out that this artwork is just a scanned image of Chong’s iPad, kind of like something your parents would do when they can’t figure out the screenshot function on their device. Chong’s statement about Singtel / 64% / 13:59 / Monday 6 July / Slide to Unlock is aptly droll:
“It’s basically a very high resolution scan of my iPad at the moment when I decided that I will make a work for you.”
Hilarious. But before you go accusing Chong of being a hack artist, know that he’s got a pretty formidable body of work as an artist, curator and writer. Just look at the 40-year-old’s resumé.
Granted, art is open to interpretation, but this one just takes the cake as one of the most absurd things to be considered ‘art’ — it costs way more than if you simply scanned your own iPad and printed out the image yourself.
But ridiculous as it may seem, Chong’s work makes a clever statement about the anything-goes nature of art, while also mocking the fact that people will buy anything as long as it’s ‘art’. It’s the same thing with Supreme bricks — hardcore fuccbois will pay through their noses for something as inconsequential as a brick, as long as it’s Supreme.
