LE ISTALLAZIONI DI DO-HO SUH

Do-Ho Suh was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1962. After earning his BFA and MFA in Oriental Painting from Seoul National University, and fulfilling his term of mandatory service in the South Korean military, Suh relocated to the United States to continue his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design and Yale University. Best known for his intricate sculptures that defy conventional notions of scale and site-specificity, Suh draws attention to the ways viewers occupy and inhabit public space....

Staircase

‘cause and effect’, 2007
installation at the gallery lehmann maupin, new york
image courtesy gallery lehmann maupin

uni-form/s: self portait/s: my 39 years’, 2006
installation at art basel
image courtesy gallery lehmann maupin, new york

‘reflection’, 2005
large scale installation at the hermes gallery in tokyo.
it consists of two gates made from nylon fabric which are separated by a translucent fabric
‘floor’, appearing to be a reflection.  image courtesy gallery hermes, tokyo

the ‘gate’ is based on the former entrance to his family’s home in seoul,
it was intended to encourage contemplation on how we remember images and space.
image courtesy gallery hermes, tokyo

‘screen’, 2004
installation at the museum for world culture in gothenburg, sweden
image courtesy gallery lehmann maupin, new york

‘screen’ (detail)
image courtesy gallery lehmann maupin, new york

‘paratrooper I’, 2004
installation at the gallery lehmann maupin, new york
image courtesy gallery lehmann maupin

‘paratrooper I’ (detail)
image courtesy gallery lehmann maupin

the perfect home II (detail), 2003
installation at the gallery lehmann maupin, new york
image courtesy gallery lehmann maupin

‘karma’, 2003
installation at the artsonje center, seoul
image courtesy artsonje center

High School Uni-Form

‘who am we?’ (detail) 1996/2001
photograph © designboom
wallpaper shown in the italian pavilion of venice biennial, 2001

‘who am we?’ (detail)
photograph © designboom
the portraits are of about 40 000 teenagers and were taken from photographs in the artist’s high-school yearbooks. at a distance, the faces cannot be distinguished.
on closer viewing dots become recognisable as photographs.

‘floor’ installation, venice art biennial, 2001
photograph © designboom
in the italian pavilion, viewers were encouraged to walk on a thick glass floor with
thousands of tiny plastic human figures.
they represent the multiple, the diverse, the anonymous mass… supporting and
resisting the floor.

‘floor’ (detail)
photograph © designboom
a small section of this large ‘floor’ installation has since been cut by the artist and donated
to his father who uses it as a coffee table.

‘some/one’, venice art biennial, 2001
in the korean pavilion the floor is blanketed with a thousands of military nickel dog tags.
evocative of the way an individual soldier is part of a larger troop or military body,
these tags swell to form a hollow, ghost-like suit of a traditional korean dress.
photograph © designboom

‘some/one’ (detail)
photograph © designboom
do-ho suh showed us the first prototype of this sculpture - see the artist in his seoul studio

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