Albert Chong

Albert Chong studied at School of Visual Arts and University of California, San Diego. The field of work recorded is art practice, art history and computer art. Places of work recorded in the authority are Boulder. Residence is recorded at Colorado and Boulder. Employment is recorded with School of Visual Arts, Rhode Island School of Design and University of Colorado Boulder. Positions recorded include full professor and artist-in-residence. Work by Albert Chong is recorded in the collections of Smithsonian American Art Museum. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Chong was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1958. His parents ran a grocery store and his father was a well-respected justice of the peace. His multicultural heritage is described in an L.A. times article: "Half-Chinese, half-Jamaican Chong was raised Catholic but has followed Rastafari, the Ethiopian-inspired political/religious movement, and Santeria, the syncretic religion forged by African slaves living under Christian domination in the Caribbean." The article also relates an episode from Chong's early childhood, wherein his father brought both a Catholic priest and an Obeahman shaman to bless a new house they had bought in Jamaica. Chong immigrated permanently to the United States in 1977, settling first with his sisters in Brooklyn. He attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City from 1978 to 1981, and in 1981, Chong started his exhibiting career. In 1988, his family moved to San Diego, and Chong attended the University of California, San Diego. In 1991, Chong received his Master of Fine Arts degree from that university.

Chong works across art medias, primarily in photography, installation, and sculpture. The content of the work deals with mysticism, spirituality, race and identity, as well as investigating the inherent value in images and objects. Chong’s best known bodies of work are black and white still life photographs. His work was included in the 2025 exhibition Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985 at the National Gallery of Art.