The Fourth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

SUH DO-HO - 1 WHOAM WE?' In Who am we? 1996-2000, Suh Do-Ho has designed a wallpaper in which the pattern is created by an immense sea of faces. The paper is then installed in a designated space, on a wall or in a room. The miniaturised portraits of about 40 000 teenagers (taken from Suh's high-school yearbooks) form the design emblem; each face is framed within a 4mm disc, creating row upon row of spheres. From a distance the faces diminish to such an extent that they almost do not register as images at all, and instead appear as a blank wall. As one moves closer, like the steady focusing of a slow-resolution telephoto lens, the dots gather density, rising from the wall to become recognisable as photographs.The relationship between the individual and the collective is one important idea being explored in this work; another is how this collective might be constituted, and to what end. By moving from the universal question 'Who am I?' to incorporate the collective 'we', this work concentrates on challenging issues that negotiate identity, the connections between the one and the many, and interpretations about perception and home. 348 West 22nd St, Apt. A, New York, NY 10011 USA 2000 Translucent nylon 430 x 690 x 245cm Courtesy: The artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York 100 APT2002 Some/one 2001 Stainless steel military dog tags, nickel plated copper sheets, steel structure, glass fibre reinforced resin, rubber sheets Dimensions variable, ed.1/3 Collection: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Courtesy: The artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York Suh was in his early twenties when he left Korea in 1993 to study and live in the United States of America. Between 1994 and 2000 he produced a group of works in which he used fabric to construct replicas of the homes and apartments where he had lived. Room 5761994-95 was made from muslin; other works in the series, including Seoul home/LA.home/New York home 1999, were constructed from a luminous green translucent silk. 348 West 22nd Street, Apt.A. New York, NY 10011, USA 2000 was made out of grey nylon. Fabricating spaces with fragile and almost weightless materials, Suh explores what it means to move across cities and nations. Within these reconstituted fabric rooms and homes Suh pays close attention to detail, so that light switches, taps, and the patterns of tiles and windows are all carefully reproduced and stitched together. Suspended above the ground, or touching it lightly, the 'homes' inevitably evoke ideas about tents and temporary dwellings, about migration and travel. They are also deeply reminiscent of shade houses, those semi-transparent structures designed to cultivate plant species, using nylon mesh or translucent cloth to encourage specific micro-environments - spaces designed to be both investigatory and nurturing. Suh Do-Ho subtly unpacks the complexities inherent in these associations. For this artist, home is an idea as much as a reality, and the movement of people in today's world is complex, impermanent, and potentially disorienting and disruptive. Suh Do-Ho South Korea/United States b.1962 Who am we? (detail) 1996-2000 25 sheets, four-colour off-set wallpaper 61 x 91.4cm each Collection: The artist Courtesy: The artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York