Heman Chong insists that there are “zero metaphors and zero irony” in his practice. “What you see is what you get,” he says. If this was true of Chong’s most recent show, “Peace Prosperity and Friendship with All Nations,” curated by Kathleen Ditzig, then it was only because the show—a presentation of works inspired by the year 2020—hardly needed an extra layer to make its point.

Take, for example, the mural in which the phrase PEACE PROSPERITY AND FRIENDSHIP WITH ALL NATIONS appears in a thick black classic-monster-movie font. Dripping with a hypocrisy as sticky and chilling as the kitschy