While our London gallery is temporarily closed in accordance with UK national lockdown restrictions, we are pleased to bring you Do Ho Suh, a digital companion to our physical presentation at 1 Cromwell Place.
Offering an overview of the acclaimed Korean artist and featuring iconic works, this online experience seeks to showcase the range of Suh’s practice—from large and small-scale architectural fabric works, to thread drawings and watercolors, to bronze sculpture. Throughout his career, Suh has investigated the ways in which we occupy and inhabit both public and private space, drawing attention to questions of identity and the role of the individual in today’s increasingly global society.
Do Ho Suh
Hub-1, Entrance, 296-8, Sungbook-Dong, Sungboo-Ku, Seoul, Korea, 2018
Polyester fabric and stainless steel
93.11 x 75.59 x 94.09 inches
236.5 x 192 x 239 cm
Edition of 3
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
Do Ho Suh
Hub-1, Entrance, 296-8, Sungbook-Dong, Sungboo-Ku, Seoul, Korea, 2018
Polyester fabric and stainless steel
93.11 x 75.59 x 94.09 inches
236.5 x 192 x 239 cm
Edition of 3
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
Do Ho Suh
Hub-1, Entrance, 296-8, Sungbook-Dong, Sungboo-Ku, Seoul, Korea, 2018
Polyester fabric and stainless steel
93.11 x 75.59 x 94.09 inches
236.5 x 192 x 239 cm
Edition of 3
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
Do Ho Suh
Hub-1, Entrance, 296-8, Sungbook-Dong, Sungboo-Ku, Seoul, Korea, 2018
Polyester fabric and stainless steel
93.11 x 75.59 x 94.09 inches
236.5 x 192 x 239 cm
Edition of 3
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
Do Ho Suh
Hub-1, Entrance, 296-8, Sungbook-Dong, Sungboo-Ku, Seoul, Korea, 2018
Polyester fabric and stainless steel
93.11 x 75.59 x 94.09 inches
236.5 x 192 x 239 cm
Edition of 3
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
Do Ho Suh
Hub-1, Entrance, 296-8, Sungbook-Dong, Sungboo-Ku, Seoul, Korea, 2018
Polyester fabric and stainless steel
93.11 x 75.59 x 94.09 inches
236.5 x 192 x 239 cm
Edition of 3
© Do Ho Suh
InquireBorn in Seoul and now based in London, Suh is known for his multidisciplinary practice that confronts questions of home, memory, marginality, and the correlation between psychic and physical space. His autobiographical fabric sculptures recreate, to scale, spaces of his former residences and studios. Reflecting an itinerant life, these highly detailed portraits feature buildings, rooms, and domestic objects from past and present homes in Korea, Rhode Island, Berlin, London, and New York.
“Home is both everywhere and nowhere. Or, as I would put it, home is infinitely transportable. At least that is what I would like to believe, as I constantly move around, oscillating between cultures.”
— Do Ho Suh in Home Within Home (2012)
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DO HO SUH
Hub-1, Entrance, 296-8, Sungbook-Dong, Sungboo-Ku, Seoul, Korea, 2018
Polyester fabric and stainless steel
93.11 x 75.59 x 94.09 inches
236.5 x 192 x 239 cm
© Do Ho Suh
InquireAnchoring this presentation is Hub-1, Entrance, 296-8, Sungbook-Dong, Sungboo-Ku, Seoul, Korea (2018), a one-to-one reproduction of a corridor from Suh’s childhood home in Seoul. The work, part of the artist’s renowned Hubs series, explores the in-between spaces one inhabits before entering rooms, where the relationship between exterior and interior, public and private, is blurred. Playing with notions of site-specificity, Suh has described the Hubs, which are easily transportable despite their scale, as “survival mechanisms” that allow him to carry ideas of home anywhere. Each Hub, with its translucence a nod to the malleability of memory, is activated when the viewer temporarily inhabits the work.
DO HO SUH
Intercoms, London Home & Studio, New York Home, Studio & Corridor, Berlin Home, and Providence Home; Lighting Fixtures, New York Studio & Corridors, Seoul Home, Berlin Home, Providence Home; Fuse Boxes, London Studio, New York Home, Studio & Corridor, 2019
Polyester fabric
55.24 x 215.67 inches
140.3 x 547.8 cm
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Intercoms, London Home & Studio, New York Home, Studio & Corridor, Berlin Home, and Providence Home; Lighting Fixtures, New York Studio & Corridors, Seoul Home, Berlin Home, Providence Home; Fuse Boxes, London Studio, New York Home, Studio & Corridor, 2019 (detail)
Polyester fabric
55.24 x 215.67 inches
140.3 x 547.8 cm
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Intercoms, London Home & Studio, New York Home, Studio & Corridor, Berlin Home, and Providence Home; Lighting Fixtures, New York Studio & Corridors, Seoul Home, Berlin Home, Providence Home; Fuse Boxes, London Studio, New York Home, Studio & Corridor, 2019 (detail)
Polyester fabric
55.24 x 215.67 inches
140.3 x 547.8 cm
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Intercoms, London Home & Studio, New York Home, Studio & Corridor, Berlin Home, and Providence Home; Lighting Fixtures, New York Studio & Corridors, Seoul Home, Berlin Home, Providence Home; Fuse Boxes, London Studio, New York Home, Studio & Corridor, 2019 (detail)
Polyester fabric
55.24 x 215.67 inches
140.3 x 547.8 cm
© Do Ho Suh
InquireIn his exquisite Specimen series, Suh replicates in fabric individual household elements such as light switches, door handles, electric panels, and appliances found in his previous homes, detaching them from the context of the overall space. Here we see Suh combining lighting fixtures from his New York studio and its adjacent corridors, as well as his former homes in Seoul, Berlin, and Providence, Rhode Island. By isolating these objects, Suh distills the feelings and memories of a place that reside in these quotidian forms; simulacra of the objects that silently punctuate the everyday. Each work in the Specimen series encourages viewers to focus on particular elements in greater detail and reflect on their own frequent and tactile relationship with these objects.
“I try to understand my life as a movement through different spaces.”
— Do Ho Suh, Art21
#style1
Watch as Suh makes Rubbing/Loving in the New York apartment that was his home and studio for 18 years.
DO HO SUH
Undressing, 2019
Watercolor on postcard
3.94 x 5.91 inches (paper)
10 x 15 cm
10.43 x 12.2 x 1.57 inches (framed)
26.5 x 31 x 4 cm
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Undressing, 2019
Watercolor on postcard
3.94 x 5.91 inches (paper)
10 x 15 cm
10.43 x 12.2 x 1.57 inches (framed)
26.5 x 31 x 4 cm
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Undressing, 2020
Charcoal, ink, watercolor on paper
7.09 x 10.24 inches (paper)
18 x 26 cm
16.54 x 13.39 x 1.57 inches (framed)
42 x 34 x 4 cm
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Undressing, 2020
Charcoal, ink, watercolor on paper
7.09 x 10.24 inches (paper)
18 x 26 cm
16.54 x 13.39 x 1.57 inches (framed)
42 x 34 x 4 cm
© Do Ho Suh
InquireNotions of home and human connectivity are further explored in a series of recent mixed media and watercolor works on paper, Undressing (2019, 2020) and Dreaming Home (2019), which feature a solitary figure trailed by a billowing form—a visualization of the parts of our multi-layered selves and the memories of home we carry wherever we go. While these works focus on the individual looking inward, Family Cuddle (2020), depicting four intertwined figures representative of the artist’s family, reflects on connection with others as an important bond that links us to home.
DO HO SUH
Family Cuddle, 2020
Watercolor on paper
5.91 x 3.94 inches (paper)
15 x 10 cm
17.52 x 14.76 x 1.57 inches (framed)
44.5 x 37.5 x 4 cm
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Family Cuddle, 2020
Watercolor on paper
5.91 x 3.94 inches (paper)
15 x 10 cm
17.52 x 14.76 x 1.57 inches (framed)
44.5 x 37.5 x 4 cm
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Dreaming Home, 2019
Watercolor and ink on rice paper postcard
4.17 x 5.55 inches (paper)
10.6 x 14.1 cm
10.67 x 11.85 x 1.57 inches (framed)
27.1 x 30.1 x 4 cm
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Dreaming Home, 2019
Watercolor and ink on rice paper postcard
4.17 x 5.55 inches (paper)
10.6 x 14.1 cm
10.67 x 11.85 x 1.57 inches (framed)
27.1 x 30.1 x 4 cm
© Do Ho Suh
InquireSuh’s interest in how we construct and maintain our sense of self, as well as our sense of security, extends beyond placemaking. His Karma series explores the complex, interconnected nature of people and experiences that make up one’s life, relating this theme both to one’s personal journey and to the external forces that send us into new directions with different resulting outcomes. In his single-columned Karma (2015) and four-columned Karma (2015) sculptures, the artist focuses on human connectivity through a literal representation of the self in relation to others. Visualizing the complex interconnected web of relationships that make up one’s life by stacking uniform figures, one on top of another, Suh questions where the individual begins and ends. Present here and throughout much of Suh’s work is an exploration of the idea of human connectivity, applying both to existing relationships and to one’s relationship with past and future generations.
DO HO SUH
Karma (single column), 2015
Stainless steel on black granite
33.03 x 16.93 x 16.93 inches (overall)
83.9 x 43 x 43 cm
Edition of 5
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Karma (single column), 2015 (detail)
Stainless steel on black granite
33.03 x 16.93 x 16.93 inches (overall)
83.9 x 43 x 43 cm
Edition of 5
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Karma (single column), 2015
Stainless steel on black granite
33.03 x 16.93 x 16.93 inches (overall)
83.9 x 43 x 43 cm
Edition of 5
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Karma (single column), 2015
Stainless steel on black granite
33.03 x 16.93 x 16.93 inches (overall)
83.9 x 43 x 43 cm
Edition of 5
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Karma (single column), 2015 (detail)
Stainless steel on black granite
33.03 x 16.93 x 16.93 inches (overall)
83.9 x 43 x 43 cm
Edition of 5
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Karma (4 columns), 2015
24K gold plating on stainless steel on black granite
31.32 x 34.56 x 34.56 inches (overall with felt bottom)
79.6 x 87.8 x 87.8 cm
Edition of 3
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Karma (4 columns), 2015
24K gold plating on stainless steel on black granite
31.32 x 34.56 x 34.56 inches (overall with felt bottom)
79.6 x 87.8 x 87.8 cm
Edition of 3
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
DO HO SUH
Karma (4 columns), 2015 (detail)
24K gold plating on stainless steel on black granite
31.32 x 34.56 x 34.56 inches (overall with felt bottom)
79.6 x 87.8 x 87.8 cm
Edition of 3
© Do Ho Suh
Inquire
Do Ho Suh in his studio with Floor, in progress
Do Ho Suh, Floor, 1997–2000. Installation view at Lehmann Maupin, New York, 2000. © Do Ho Suh
Do Ho Suh, Floor, 1997–2000. Installation view at Lehmann Maupin, New York, 2000. © Do Ho Suh
Notably, this presentation marks 20 years since Suh’s first exhibition with Lehmann Maupin and his first in the United States. The central work of the exhibition was Floor, a room-filling installation composed of 180,000 plastic figures supporting a glass surface on which visitors were able to walk. With Floor, Suh considered the concept of collective power and its relationship to individual and interpersonal identity.
Do Ho Suh. Photo by Ju Yeon Lee
Do Ho Suh (b. 1962, Seoul, Korea; lives and works in London) works across various media, creating drawings, film, and sculptural works that confront questions of home, physical space, displacement, memory, individuality, and collectivity. Suh is best known for his fabric sculptures that reconstruct to scale his former homes in Korea, Rhode Island, Berlin, London, and New York. Suh is interested in the malleability of space in both its physical and metaphorical forms, and examines how the body relates to, inhabits, and interacts with that space. He is particularly interested in domestic space and the way the concept of home can be articulated through architecture that has a specific location, form, and history. For Suh, 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.
Click here to read Suh’s full biography.
Inquire about available works:
inquire@lehmannmaupin.com
To speak with a member of our London team and to stay up-to-date on the reopening of Lehmann Maupin London, please contact:
london@lehmannmaupin.com
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Credits: All installation views of Lehmann Maupin London: Photos by Jack Hems; Video: “Do Ho Suh: ‘Rubbing / Loving’,” 2016. From Art21’s Extended Play series. Video courtesy Art21, art21.org, founded 1997; Photos of Karma (single column) by Elisabeth Bernstein; All artworks: © Do Ho Suh
