"It's more about capturing enough visual and physical information to evoke a sense of the space as I experienced it." - Do Ho Suh.
This show at Tate Modern is long overdue. It has been too many years since I last encountered Do Ho Suh's wonderful architectural installations and textile drawings in London. The last for me personally was at Lehman Maupin at Cromwell Place in 2021, and then previously (here) at Victoria Miro in 2017. Suh grew up in Seoul and studied traditional Korean painting before moving to the United States to study sculpture and installation at the Rhode Island School of Design and then Yale. he became internationally known when he represented Korea at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001. This is the first major London survey of Suh's work. It is the culmination of thirty years of his art questioning what exactly a home is. The autobiographical nature of Suh's work means that as well as an obviously physical thing, he examines the feelings such an environment evokes as well as the memories that a home can elicit. Visitors are invited to literally walk through Suh's past with a signature labyrinthine installation constructed from colourful, translucent netting which recreates a series of decorative habitats in which the artist has resided. There is great attention to detail as always with the intricate reconstruction of seemingly mundane architectural objects such as decorative wall panelling, door handles, air conditioning fans, fire safety plaques etc. everyday mundane particulars that we pass on a daily basis and take for granted all rendered in an ethereal, translucent colourful nylon mesh, which summon up perfectly the spirit of former residencies. Just outside the exhibition at the entrance is an interesting work Public Figures, 1998, a full scale plinth such as those found in public squares etc. but this is empty, devoid of the usual military male on horseback. A closer look reveals that the plinth is held up by an articulated army of patinated male and female figures ready to march in unison whilst supporting the column. Although Public Figures is a static sculpture Suh, originally envisioned it as a self propelled piece able to move around an exhibition space with the legs of the figures below the plinth moving together in concert. Due to safety concerns Suh's ambition has had to be scaled back for now, but the artist still has hopes a fully mobile sculpture will be a viable possibility in the future. The exhibition proper opens with Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home (2013-2022), an impressive full scale rendering of his childhood home a traditional piece of Korean vernacular architecture called a hanok, created from delicate off-white paper. The imprint of the surface texture of each wall, floor and fitting has been captured on each piece of paper with Korean rubbing techniques. It is like a ghostly form made physical. My favourite of the architectural environments in the exhibition was the large white meshed structure full of the randomly positioned delicate details of stand alone fixtures and fittings such as taps, door knobs, light switches, shower nozzles and toilet roll dispensers from various interiors which appear to hover in space like brightly coloured three-dimensional drawings. I really enjoyed the precise rendering and juxtapositions of these most mundane but essential elements of domestic hardware, their grouping en mass was a fun ending to the main part of the exhibition. Suh is an amazing colourist, and although he doesn't mix paint like a traditional artist, he combines vividly coloured threads and meshed netting to great effect. The exhibition also features many of Suh's amazing stitched "thread drawings" sewn with coloured threads. These are exercises which I have long made a part of my own practice too, although Suh's stitched drawings are denser and more involved. They are compositions full of movement emphasised by the vivid colours of the thread and the repetitive stitching. I have included many examples below. It was a great pleasure to engage with Suh's practice again and think about the various buildings and environments that I have inhabited throughout my lifetime and the nostalgic memories and sensations that their interiors have conjured up through the tunnel of time.
Do Ho Suh: Walk The House
until 19th October
Tate Modern
Bankside
London
SE1
