This solo exhibition by artist Do Ho Suh features work ranging from large-scale architectural installations and sculptures, to works on paper and video. Operating within a distinctly twenty-first century global mode, Suh crafts evocative works that reflect ideas of home, identity, and personal space.
In his work, Suh draws on his personal experiences growing up in Seoul, South Korea, studying art in the U.S., and moving homes several times over the course of his life. He now lives a global and “nomadic” existence, with homes in New York, London, and Seoul. Inspired by his personal history and biography, the artist’s sculptures and installations reveal a range of powerful themes, including notions of public versus private space, global identity, memory, and displacement. At the same time, Suh’s works strike viewers with their delicate monumentality, subtle beauty, and intricate construction techniques.
This exhibition will transform MCASD Downtown’s Jacobs Building into a maze-like installation that replicates the artist’s apartment spaces from a single building in New York City. Created in luminous swaths of translucent fabric, the ghostly rooms and hallways are mysteriously supported by a subtle stainless steel armature. Three combined installations encourage the public to pass through the ephemeral, dreamlike representation of the artist’s personal history. In contrast to this bright, airy space, the artist’s Specimen Series (2013) is installed in illuminated vitrines in a darkened gallery. These sculptures replicate appliances and fixtures in exacting detail and, like the larger installations, are constructed entirely out of polyester fabric over a stainless steel framework.
