Thomas Kong (1950–2023) was an artist working in collage and assemblage, using advertising, packaging, and other surplus material from his convenience store, Kim's Corner Food, located in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois.

Kong roughly created 30,000 pieces of collage from 2013-2023. Due to safety concerns, the estate could not rescue all the artworks. With the community’s support, the estate is currently working on archiving roughly 3,000 pieces of artwork at 062, located in Pilsen. Currently, we have archived around 2,200 works and the images will be available by the end of Spring 2026. If you’d like to schedule a visit to view the works, please reach out to us directly using the form below.

Please visit https://thomaskong.biz/ for more information about past exhibitions, publications and press.

Archives

Community Members who are involved

Abby Pucker, Akira Kuroki, Allison Peters Quinn, Andrea Hunt, Angela Zonunpari, Anna Kunz, CMM Framing, Claire Voon, Ed Oh, Ellen Larson, Eugene I-Peng Tang, Fia Kim, Gabriel Chalfin-Piney-González, Galit Aloni, Guanyu Xu, Hunter Riley, Jennifer Keats, Jonathan Solomon, Kate Sierzputowski, Kerry Cardoza, Lindsey White, Lizzy Moo, Lu Liang, Mary Eleanor Wallace, Mayumi Lake, Myungah Hyon, Nathan Smith, Robert Chase Heishman, S.Y. Lim, Shawn Lucas, Soo Shin, Sungho Bae, Sungjae Lee, Tomoe Miyazaki, Tony Lewis, and Yechen Zhao.

Thomas Kong’s works are available here:
Buddy Chicago
Utrecht / Now IDea Tokyo

On View:
Im/migration and Self-taught Art in Chicago at Intuit Museum

Press:
How to be Happy - Kerry Cardoza, Chicago Reader

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If you’d like to visit the archive and see the works in person, please reach out to us!