The Fourth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

SUH DO-HO Floor 1997-2000 Plastic figures, glass plates, phenolic sheets, polyurethane resin Dimensions variable Courtesy: The artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York In Who am we? the recognition that each of the faces on the wallpaper is unique takes place by degrees, as a steady resolution in visual articulation. This transition from an anonymous, bland field to the conceived, individual entity is not obvious but gradual, leisurely and unhurried. It is not possible to say when the work registers as a field of faces, since it must vary according to each viewer. At the heart of this work is the recognition that difference is essential and exists within the natural context of the collective. We need and are dependent on others, from the smallest index of family and friends to the largest encompassing coalition, the 'global village'. As Janet Kraynak has observed, 'the tension found in Suh's work is one between a national identity built upon the mythology of individuality (as in the United States), and one that celebrates the socius (as in Korea).' 1 How we describe ourselves and our relationships to the whole is thus continually under scrutiny. One interpretation is that the construction of identity is chameleonic, inevitably changing according to place and need. The only constants are that difference is integral and change inevitable. Suh himself describes this work in relation to perception and technological experiment, while acknowledging the wondrous potential for understanding that is available when one analyses cultural difference: I reduced the scale of the portraits as far as I could because I wanted to find out the exact point at w hich both the human eye and technology could identify individual traits. In the title I wanted to underline the distinction between singular and plural. In the Korean language, there is no such distinction.' The agency of change, although implied in Who am we?, is developed further in Blue-green bridge using a familiar and ubiquitous structure. Bridges are symbols of connection and interdependence. They have been the site for engineering and design feats using the humblest of materials such a bamboo and rope, through to breathtaking constructions of steel and concrete. In relation to the history of built environments, bridges are almost as constant a design form as any dwelling. In Suh's bridge the figures appear beneath the structure and have been located to suggest that they are supporting those who use it - literally holding them up.The bridge's fundamental interconnecting and linking facility becomes the basis of an artistic gesture. Yet in reality Blue-green bridge is made to be gazed upon rather than walked across. The brilliance of Suh's work lies in this concentration of what Kraynak has described as 'a series of binaristic pairs - local/global, fixity/dislocation, space/time, citizen/nomad, nationalism/post-nationalism - informing the language of much contemporary thought, embodying the tensions of an as yet unresolved system of international and inter-cultural relations.' 3 This facility to embody deeply complex ideas with subtle clarity, using simple and beautiful forms, marks Suh Do-Ho as a significant contemporary artist. Suhanya Raffel is Head of Asian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery. 103