Brian Fitzsimmons
The artist has meticulously re-created his longtime New York City apartment and studio.
Whether it’s Seoul, New York City or London, the Korean-born sculptor and installation artist Do Ho Suh is thinking about home.
“Each and every time, when I try to understand the meaning of home through my art, by the end of the project or piece I have more questions,” says Suh, whose work is being exhibited at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art through May 14. “Still, I’m looking for the answer for it.”
Landing an exhibit from Suh is a major score for the Madison museum. The artist is a towering figure in the world of contemporary art, and cherished internationally. “You would be hard-pressed to find a time when [Suh’s work] wasn’t topical,” says MMoCA director Stephen Fleischman. “It’s absolutely stunning.”
The exhibit at MMoCA was initially curated by the Contemporary Austin before moving on to Cleveland and San Diego; Madison is the last stop. Other pieces from Suh have shown in New York at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney and the Guggenheim, and his work has appeared in many major exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale.
Much of Suh’s work is informed by his peregrine lifestyle: His projects span several mediums, each addressing the idea of belonging and his complex search for it. Featured in the show are Suh’s “drawings” (made from thread embedded in cotton paper), and selections from the Rubbing/Loving Project, colored pencil impressions from the walls of his New York dwelling. Alongside these, each in separate gallery rooms, are his 1/16th-scale construction of a Korean home, titled Secret Garden, as well as Specimen Series, which presents stitched facsimiles of several household appliances displayed in illuminated glass cases.
The centerpiece of the exhibit, however, is Suh’s series of interactive, full-scale apartment reconstructions. Crafted from brightly colored, diaphanous polyester fabric, Apartment A, Unit 2, Corridor and Staircase, 348 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 100011, USA, serve as ghostly homages to the artist’s New York City home, which he left in 2016 after living there for nearly 20 years. Each piece is colored and created separately, yet arranged together, as they would be in the living space itself.
Catherine Capellaro
Visitors may experience the sensation of entering a three-dimensional blueprint..
To create the pieces, Suh meticulously measured every inch of his Chelsea abode and had replicas of each individual space crafted and hand-sewn from multicolored fibers. “I have a habit of measuring spaces when I first move in,” says Suh, adding that he began the practice when he moved from Korea in 1991 to attend the Rhode Island School of Design. “When I look back, that was a way to cope, to understand my new environment.”
Visitors to Suh’s exhibit walk through the installation to experience an ethereal version of the residence. The works are striking in their size. Light filters through the fabric, creating an airy, dreamlike atmosphere. Walking between replicas of the artist’s bathroom and kitchen, his living space and bedroom, it becomes clear just how tenuous the space actually is.
From a distance, the fabric architecture appears sturdy and durable. But after entering, the walls and ceilings breathe and sway from the wind created by people walking past — much like curtains do. These strange, delicate constructions memorialize a home without truly remaking it. “It’s ephemeral.” Suh notes of the fabric work. “I wanted to sort of render the idea of the absence of the presence.”
Suh was born in Seoul in 1962, where he studied traditional painting at Seoul National University and served a mandatory term in the country’s military. After moving to the United States, he graduated from design school and Yale University. The artist lived and worked in New York City from 1997 to 2016; he relocated full-time to London late last year.
“I think my practice is kind of a paradox,” says Suh. “I want to bring my memories of this place with me, in that I can actually reconstruct a space that I care about somewhere else. But at the same time, it was kind of a coping method, for letting things go.”
