Do Ho Suh: Speculations
17th August, 2024 – 3rd November, 2024
Art Sonje Center
87 Yulgok-ro 3-gil
Jongno District
Seoul, South Korea
Art Sonje Center will present a solo exhibition titled Do Ho Suh: Speculations, opening from August 17 – November 3, 2024. As one of the most important figures in Korean contemporary art today, Do Ho Suh presented his very first Korean solo show at Art Sonje Center in 2003. More than 20 years later, Suh and Art Sonje Center have partnered once again to provide an overview of the Speculations series, which the artist has been working on since 2005. The exhibition will be presented throughout the entire Art Sonje Center building, highlighting stories of intersecting cultures and some of the conditions of a transnational life.
48 x 34.9 x 47.8 cm. Photo Seowon Nam. Courtesy of Art Sonje Center
Do Ho Suh: Speculations will be a chance to experience the artist’s reflections on life and the world, and his imaginings of the future, as his body of work explores what might be possible in a different world, or in future worlds. The exhibition will present themes that Suh has consistently explored in his career over the past 20 years—including time, personal space, memory, and movement—organized around the overarching concept of “speculation”.
In Suh’s work, “speculation” is a word that encompasses aspects of contemplation, inferences, hypotheses, suggestions, and imaginings that relate to interactions between individuals, communities and the environment. Describing his creative activities as a “process of speculation,” the artist uses diverse storytelling approaches to share new possibilities for approaching the emotional and physical complexities of life.
Major Exhibition Content:
- Speculation series: Do Ho Suh’s long-running ‘Speculations’ series features projects that
necessarily remain of a speculative nature due to physical, logistical or conceptual obstacles. Instead, they exist as hypotheses, diagrams, animations, models and texts. The creations on display highlight the artist’s imagination and creativity, including new pathways built between structures and people. These works encourage poetic reflection on contemporary life, encompassing everything from personal experiences to communal memory as they blur the boundaries between fact and fantasy.
- One of the series, Public Figures (1998), is a key work in his oeuvre, which the artist describes as displacing, “the site of the (heroic) individual by withdrawing the figure from above the pedestal and installing it below, reducing its size and anonymising and multiplying it”. The kinetic 1:6 scale version, which is newly produced for the exhibition, sees the artist realizing his original ambition with Public Figures: to challenge the static, site-specific nature of statuary by animating the figures, which move the pedestal around the site.
- Bridge Project: This project shares new possibilities that transcend constraints of place and time, reflecting an architectural imagination that connects the cities Suh has called home. Drawing on collaboration with architects, industrial designers, engineers, and others, it exemplifies Do Ho Suh’s original artistic vision. In this exhibition, the next iteration of Suh’s Bridge Project will be unveiled. For this version, Suh’s current home – London – is included. The ‘perfect home’ is equidistant between Seoul, New York, and London, located north of the Arctic Circle. The project poses questions about the possibility of moving between different spaces, examining potential responses to new challenges including isolation, barriers, and redrawn borders.
- Architectural films: Robin Hood Gardens (2018) and Dong In (2022) explore time, memory, and the meaning of spaces and communities through the lens of shared housing complexes in London and Daegu that are vanishing due to redevelopment. Recorded and represented in intricate detail by way of the camera’s slow tempos, these films invite reflection on community history and the interactions between people and their environments.
I’ve wanted to bring my models, which are similar to architectural models although
they engage with fictional and conceptual realms, together for years, so I’m very
pleased to be doing that at Art Sonje Center. It is of course always meaningful for
me to exhibit in Seoul and there’s a strong synchronicity with the work on display
and the city of my birth.” – Do Ho Suh
In conjunction with the exhibition, an artist book is also scheduled for publication. Featuring drawings taken from Do Ho Suh’s sketchbooks, this book will offer a glimpse of the conceptual starting points behind his work and his processes of contemplation. The book will provide intimate access into the artist’s personal ideas and imagination.
Various associated events will be taking place as well, including guided tours, screening and education programs.
- Docent-guided Tours (English)
Dates: September 4 – 7, 3 p.m.
Duration: 40 minutes - Screening: Do Ho Suh
Dates: Every Saturday, 4 p.m. (except September 14 and 21, and October 26)
Venue: Art Hall, Art Sonje Center
More details will be available on website in August. - Lecture: Do Ho Suh within Contemporary Art History
Dates: Saturday, September 28, 5 p.m.
Venue: Art Hall, Art Sonje Center
Lecturer: Jung-Ah Woo (Professor of POSTECH Humanities and Social Sciences)
Do Ho Suh: Speculations opens on the 17th of August, 2024 until the 3rd of November, 2024 at Art Sonje Center
©2024 Art Sonje Center
Art Plugged is a contemporary platform inspired by a relationship with the broader arts communities. We provide our audience with curated insight into the world of art, from exhibitions to artist interviews and more.
