Heman Chong

The Library of Unread Books, 2016 - ongoing
Collection of Singapore Art Museum

The Library of Unread Books is an itinerant library initiated by Heman Chong and Renée Staal. It is a living reference library with a collection of over 700 titles, which traces the perimeters of knowledge and reflects on notions of access, excess and the politics of redistribution.

Every single book you find in the collection was once private property and was donated by an individual who did not read it when it was in their possession. Contributors to the growing mobile library receive a personalised library card and a lifetime membership.

The Library of Unread Books sheds light on these once-hidden-away titles to emphasise shared knowledge. The books, which are accessible to anyone who visits the library, work to create commons.

The books of The Library of Unread Books are arranged randomly and in stacks, in a setting that encourages visitors to feel at home and free to rearrange the books according to their will.

Reminding us that a (private) library is both a means to an end and a research tool rather than an accessory, Umberto Eco famously called for an “antilibrary” made up of unread books. The novelist and scholar argued that read books are far less valuable than unread ones and that a library should contain as much of what one does not know as finance might allow. “You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly.”

In the case of this library of unread books, access to knowledge is not contingent on finance, and so the books return to a common resource pool.

Donate an unread book to this library housed at International Plaza Singapore, #01-22, from 16 October 2022 to 19 March 2023. In exchange, you will receive a lifetime membership to the library.

BIO
Heman Chong (b. 1977) and Renée Staal co-founded The Library of Unread Books in 2016. The Library of Unread Books has been hosted by the NTU Center for Contemporary Art, Singapore; The Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD), Manila; Casco Art Institute, Utrecht; Kunstverein Milano, Milan; Jameel Arts Center, Dubai; tranzit.cz, Prague; and I_S_L_A_N_D_S, Singapore.

Chong is an artist whose work is located at the intersection of image, performance, situations and writing. His practice can be read as an imagining, interrogation and sometimes intervention into infrastructure as an everyday medium of politics. Staal is a Singapore-based collection manager. She has worked at art institutions and architecture practices in Singapore, the Netherlands and the United States. She has contributed to numerous artist-run projects in the Netherlands.

INFORMATION

• The Library of Unread Books. 2016 - ongoing. Reference library. Dimensions variable.