Many Americans think of Koreans in the United States as diligent and capable newcomers who adjust quickly to their host country. Different, yes, but in a nation of differences and diversity, Koreans are just another stripe of color in an ever trendy mosaic. Do they have reservations about the new culture they must adapt to? Are they experiencing difficulties? No one knows, because no one ever bothers to ask them. No one, except for perhaps Korean artist Do Ho Suh, who resurfaced to transform elements of the autobiographical into both the artistic and the architectural at Lehmann Maupin Gallery.
As you can see from the photograph above, Suh created replicas of two buildings that have become fused thanks to a collison of two worlds, which took place when the artist first arrived in the United States in 1991 to attend the Rhode Island School of Design. The prewar brownstone replica represents the home he adopted in Providence, Rhode Island, and the hanok on the right depicts his childhood home in Korea with painstaking accuracy. According to the art narrative, his Korean home was lifted up by a tornado, transporting Suh to a strange but soon-to-be-familiar place called America. And the results are a vision to behold.
Details of hanok in Fallen Star 1/5, 2008-2011
Floor by floor of Fallen Star 1/5, 2008-2011
The tornado-driven crash landing has devastated the interior of the brownstone across all immediately adjacent floors. The damage is severe, even irreparable, but also void of catastrophic emotion. The rooms appear to be inhabited, and yet there are no people. All we have is silence, but a silence so indifferent it’s practically an ode to the ones who know that when a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, it really does not make a sound.
Suh is a remarkable artist whose intimate knowledge of cultural displacement has in many ways inspired my desire to become a better interpreter of transnational Asian culture and experience. Suh’s collision is a serious crisis, but I know all too well the greater crisis is our defiant disregard for our feelings of discontinuity and change. It’s a story that’s defined entire swathes of people but remain suppressed and unverbalized, until someone like Suh takes a stand and says, “You. This is you.” The fact that Suh is Korean and has intimate knowledge of Korean architecture made this exhibit feel all the more personal.
As for his art, I’ll let the visual outcome speak for itself.
Details of a kitchen
The attention to detail, such as in this bedroom, was simply mind-boggling.
Rear window
Visitors standing by Fallen Star 1/5, 2008-2011. Certainly gives you a sense of scale!
The parachute attached to Suh's childhood home. Definitely has echoes of his previous works.
