Do Ho Suh

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Art

Translucent Textile Sculptures by Do Ho Suh Explore the Familiarity of Quotidian Objects

Rather than portray the everyday objects that make up the routine of our lives as immovable or simply structural, Do Ho Suh (previously) captures their sentience. This is not to say that the objects around us are alive but that perhaps our familiarity with them holds a kind of energy to reflect on. In “Jet Lag,” for example, a light switch or a door is made of potently colored translucent fabrics. This invites the viewer to consider the feeling of and the attachment to these small, insignificant companions.

In “Inverted Monument,” Suh similarly captures the energy beneath the eye’s limits of a common object through the structure. What would typically be formed from concrete or some stubborn, weather-proof metal is comprised of adventurous red lines that better capture the materials’ complexity, and in this case, also its context. Again, Suh constructs a radical shift of perspective. An object characteristic of place, history, and the communities it’s formed around is constructed according to the messiness of memory and is turned upside down. The pedestal reaches for the ceiling, and the head sweeps the floor. This subtlety introduces enormous questions about not only the significance of the object and how we interact with it but why it got there in the first place.

See more of Suh’s time and geography-bending sculptures through October 29 at Lehmann Maupin in New York.

 

Art

Two Fabric Homes by Artist Do Ho Suh Float Above an Atrium in Incheon International Airport

Living and working in London, Korean artist Do Ho Suh (previously) is concerned with “home, physical space, displacement, memory, individuality, and collectivity,” ideas he evokes in his life-sized fabric sculptures and installations. His 2019 piece “Home within Home,” which is suspended from an atrium in Incheon International Airport in Seoul, positions two structures vertically, with the larger polyester and steel construction on top. This newer work evokes a similar piece from 2013, titled “Home Within Home Within Home Within Home Within Home,” which placed replicas of Suh’s former living spaces within one another, from his first house in South Korea to an apartment building in Rhode Island.

Often using his own experiences as source material, Suh’s multi-media practice explores both the physical and metaphorical understandings of home as he considers the ways people occupy structures in specific times, locations, forms, and histories. “The spaces we inhabit also contain psychological energy, and in his work, he makes visible those markers of memories, personal experiences, and a sense of security, regardless of geographic location,” a statement about his practice says.

Suh is represented by Lehmann Maupin, and you can explore more of the artist’s architectural sculptures, installations, and smaller works on the international gallery’s site.

 

Art

Do Ho Suh’s ‘Cause & Effect’: A Vortex of Little Orange Men

This giant tornado of piggybacked men is an installation by Korean artist Do Ho Suh that is currently on display at Western Washington University (photographs above depict it in alternate configurations). Via Western:

“‘Cause & Effect’ evokes a vicious tornado. This vast ceiling installation is a composition of densely hung strands that anchor thousands of figures clad in colors resembling a Doppler reading stacked atop one another,” said Do Ho Suh, adding that the artwork is a “physical realization of existence, suggesting strength in the presence of numerous individuals. The work is an attempt to decipher the boundaries between a single identity and a larger group, and how the two conditions coexist.”

Suh has been all over the news lately with his recent Fallen Star Lands installation in San Diego, and his Floor piece in Singapore similarly depicting the might of many thousands of tiny men. See many more views of this piece and other works here. (via the stranger, korea.net, herry lawford)

Update: I received clarification from WWU, Cause & Effect is still being installed and will not be on view until June of this year.