Left: Question #2: When Are We Wrong?, 2021
Right: Question #2: When Are We Right?, 2021
Isaac Chong Wai
Acrylic on canvas
160 x 120cm each
Courtesy of Bundeskunstsammlung (the Federal Collection of Contemporary Art) and Zilberman
Photo by CHROMA
Isaac Chong Wai’s two paintings When are we wrong? When are we right? present both these questions in colourful lettering on complementary monochrome backgrounds; acrylic lettering applied by hand in a sans serif font, as if done by machine. Observers are being addressed as a social collective and our power of judgement is being discussed. The binary opposition of true and false or right and wrong is supported by the complementary colours, which provide an optical illustration of the principle of bivalence. The work is asking about the conditions for truthful judgements or correct decisions. Does how we judge or decide depend on historical circumstances? Can something be wrong that was once right and vice versa? Is it possible to retrospectively assess whether a decision was right or wrong, or to lose sight of earlier judgement or decision-making criteria? Does a society’s understanding of history depend on a temporary selection of the events and developments being observed? Or are we being unnoticeably manipulated in our perception of reality? How does a story find its image in the press and later in historiography?