Neue Wache
The memorial is fogged up by a collage of breath marks left by the artist.
Neue Wache (2015) is an earlier video work which shows Chong in front of a grand window that overlooks the rear façade of Neue Wache memorial (Berlin’s national monument since 1993 for victims of war and tyranny). Chong repeatedly breathes onto the glass window until the view of Neue Wache is entirely obscured by breath marks. Stills from the video are extracted and turned into a series of intimate prints, inviting the viewer into quiet contemplation with the breathing artist. The clouded image of the national memorial spotlights the politics of memories and the malleability of state-sanctioned historical truths, pointing to the question of who gets to be commemorated and who is remembered as the perpetrator?
Neue Wache (English: The New Guard), 2015
Isaac Chong Wai
HD Video 10:52min