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Do Ho Suh
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AUDIO
Do Ho Suh
The five works by Do Ho Suh, which you can see on the big wall, originated during the artist’s years in New York. In 1997, he moved to the US from South Korea to study art. He rented an apartment, and later a studio, in a terraced house in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. These spaces became his home for several years, and also his safe haven. His close relationship to the building arose not least because of his friendship with the landlord, Arthur.
As an artist, Do Ho Suh sought ways to visually depict his entire existence in this New York house. He experimented with different artistic techniques. One of these was a method called frottage. Similar to Heidi Bucher, he covered all surfaces of the rooms—including furniture—with soft paper. Then, he used colored pencils and pastels to hatch and rub across the paper. This allowed the artist to record all of the textures of the respective surfaces on the paper. Even the traces that Do Ho Suh himself left in the rooms were imprinted there. The hatching entailed an exploration of each square millimeter of space with his body and emotions. We can view it as an expression of how deeply rooted the artist was in these rooms.
Do Ho Suh has not been able to let go of the house in New York, even today. He keeps creating new pictures using different techniques. In the exhibition we are showing his thread drawings and his work with gelatin tissue. They depict individual elements of the house in isolation: the facade in blue, the staircase in red.
I find the recurring figure of the homeowner Arthur especially touching—standing, for example, in the doorframe of building’s stairwell, drawn using colorful thread. Do you see the figure of Arthur? He stands in symbiosis with the door and the stairs. Emanating from Arthur and from the stairs are many threads in different directions. For me, this makes the staircase resemble a skeleton with blood vessels and nerve pathways. The technique of thread drawing is a delicate and sensitive process: the soft, winding threads succeed in making visible our ultimately invisible connections to spaces.
As an artist, Do Ho Suh sought ways to visually depict his entire existence in this New York house. He experimented with different artistic techniques. One of these was a method called frottage. Similar to Heidi Bucher, he covered all surfaces of the rooms—including furniture—with soft paper. Then, he used colored pencils and pastels to hatch and rub across the paper. This allowed the artist to record all of the textures of the respective surfaces on the paper. Even the traces that Do Ho Suh himself left in the rooms were imprinted there. The hatching entailed an exploration of each square millimeter of space with his body and emotions. We can view it as an expression of how deeply rooted the artist was in these rooms.
Do Ho Suh has not been able to let go of the house in New York, even today. He keeps creating new pictures using different techniques. In the exhibition we are showing his thread drawings and his work with gelatin tissue. They depict individual elements of the house in isolation: the facade in blue, the staircase in red.
I find the recurring figure of the homeowner Arthur especially touching—standing, for example, in the doorframe of building’s stairwell, drawn using colorful thread. Do you see the figure of Arthur? He stands in symbiosis with the door and the stairs. Emanating from Arthur and from the stairs are many threads in different directions. For me, this makes the staircase resemble a skeleton with blood vessels and nerve pathways. The technique of thread drawing is a delicate and sensitive process: the soft, winding threads succeed in making visible our ultimately invisible connections to spaces.