Past Exhibitions

Do Ho Suh August 10–December 1, 2002 SAM Fourth Floor Galleries

The Anne Gerber Biennial series celebrates SAM’s ongoing commitment to the art of our time internationally. The 2002 Biennial features the first survey exhibition in the United States of the work of Korean artist Do Ho Suh. It will be presented as one exhibition divided between the downtown museum and the Seattle Asian Art Museum. At SAAM, Suh’s works will be seen in the context of the much-loved installation Explore Korea: A Visit to Grandfather’s House, a re-creation of traditional Korean domestic architecture of the type that has had such a profound influence on his thinking. The exhibition has been designed to forge such connections between contemporary art and the art of the past and to acknowledge Suh’s contribution to the continuum of living cultural traditions in his native country.

Suh is perhaps best known for his sculptures that comprise numerous identical objects, including a “camouflage” floor supported by thousands of miniature plastic figures, a suit of armor made of shimmering army dog tags, and wallpaper using some 37,000 tiny portraits from his high school’s yearbooks. Through this repetition of forms, the artist makes reference to the complex relationship between the individual and the collective, a theme that is both informed by and transcends his particular cultural context. Equally important is The Perfect Home, Suh’s group of suspended diaphanous silk and nylon architectural installations based on full-scale sections of the interiors of the homes in which he has lived, both in Korea and the U.S. Suh invites viewers to step into and move through the individual “rooms” and “corridors” to experience these dislocated personal spaces firsthand. Seoul Home/L.A. Home/New York Home/Baltimore Home/London Home/Seattle Home, a spectacular celadon-green fabric sculpture modeled on his childhood home, has, since its completion in 1999, traveled to Los Angeles, Baltimore, New York, and now London and Seattle---its migration between continents charted through its constantly evolving title. At SAAM, it will look almost ethereal, floating above Fuller Garden Court.

The exhibition is a collaboration between the Seattle Art Museum and the Serpentine Gallery, London. In Seattle, the exhibition is supported by the Anne

Gerber Exhibition Endowment Fund. Generous funding also provided by Mary Ann and Henry James and contributors to the Annual Fund.

Deepening the Dialogue, an initiative funded by the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds, is a key component of this exhibition, strengthening SAM's programming and community partnerships.

Credit Line as of March 15, 2002.

Do Ho Suh Korean, b. 1962 Some/One, 2001 Stainless steel military dog tags, nickel-plated copper sheets, steel structure, glass fiber reinforced resin, and rubber sheets Variable dimensions Figure: 205 x 320 cm (diameter) Edition of 3 Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York