Specimen Series - Do Ho Suh pic courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery

Do Ho Suh's Specimen Series

Korean artist's latest project focusses on elements of his Manhattan apartment

We were admiring the work of Do Ho Suh at Lehmann Maupin's stand at Frieze on Wednesday (maybe you saw our twitpic) and thinking about the stories we've run on this great New York-based Korean artist over the last couple of years. 

So when we learnt that his next exhibition takes place at Lehmann Maupin Hong Kong we were naturally intrigued as to what form it would take. In the past he's created thousands of tiny men under a glass floor and suspended a house above a San Diego office block.

 

Specimen Series - Do Ho Suh pic courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery
Specimen Series - Do Ho Suh pic courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery

The son of a painter, Do Ho Suh studied at RISD and Yale, where he earned an MFA in Sculpture. Prior to that he'd completed a masters in Oriental Painting at Seoul National University. As you've probably noted from our previous stories his work in general addresses emotions around space and, in particular, his own feeling of displacement. They're often loaded with references to home either overt or covert. (The Frieze exhibit was a mock up of his back garden transported on to the back of a flat bed truck which was driven around Manhattan). 

Next month's show in Hong Kong is called Specimens and features his infamous translucent polyester sculptures of household appliances. It references his familiar - what have been widely described as 'gauzy' semi-transparent sculptures. On a website they look great, in person these things take on a surreal nature so we really do urge you to go if you're in the area.

 

Specimen Series - Do Ho Suh pic courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery
Specimen Series - Do Ho Suh pic courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery

"The space I’m interested in is not only a physical one, but an intangible, metaphorical, and psychological one," he has said, crediting his base in New York as having had a great influence on his work and his perception of the world. "My work started from that slippage or discrepancy, the crack. The difference between my mother tongue and foreign tongue," he says. "Once you leave your home, it's quite an unsettling experience, because you don't feel like you belong anywhere."

If you like what you see here, you might also be interested in our Wild Art book which takes a look at all kinds of art made outside the boundaries of the accepted gallery system. You can read an interview with its editor Jenny Lawson here and you can buy it from the people who made it here

 

Specimen Series - Do Ho Suh pic courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery
Specimen Series - Do Ho Suh pic courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery