In the latest poll for the Top 5 News Arts Management Stories of 2013, installation artist Suh Do-Ho was selected as Person of the Year for the category of Art and Creation. Suh, who has made more of his career overseas than in Korea, has been making quite a domestic splash recently. His solo exhibition at the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art was the first of its kind for a living Korean artist, and received great public attention, gathering the most number of visitors to the museum since the institution’s opening. , a transportable hotel Suh created from a small truck, which made the rounds in Gwangju for the 2012 Gwangju Biennale, has been upgraded for the 2013 Gwangju Folly II, and to critical acclaim. At the opening exhibition of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (MMCA Seoul), which comprised of works by some seventy Korean and foreign artists, Suh’s latest piece was definitely outstanding. Furthermore, he is at the center of the international limelight, being named the Art Innovator of 2013 by WSJM agazine and the winner of the Red Dot Design Award.

Artwork as Universe

, which is being shown at MMCA Seoul’s most experimental exhibition space, the Seoul Box, is Suh’s latest work and the largest of the Home series to date. The actual site of the exhibit, which serves as the backdrop of a work, is of critical importance to the installation artist, and for Suh, to prepare this piece while the museum was still in construction could not have been easy. Suh, however, says that he was able to conceive the work without much difficulty, by communicating with Min Hyun-jun, the architect of MMCA Seoul, and borrowing from his own extensive experience of varied spaces while utilizing computer simulation technology. The work emanates the collective energy of all the homes in which Suh has ever lived, as well as the history and feng shui of all the buildings that have ever stood at the site of the museum.

“I’ve had to consider several things: that the exhibit is located in Seoul, that it is situated on the site of Jongchinbu, which sat atop of the site of the Gyeongbokgung Palace, and finally, that it is within the MMCA building. It was important that I created the work without losing sight of the historical, political and cultural significance of the exhibition space. Though those elements are not visually noticeable in the final artwork, they informed the work in its initial stage of conception. Perhaps the visitors may vicariously experience this, at various angles: the point from which my work overlaps the view of Jongchinbu, visible from the back window of the Seoul Box; the point from which the different spaces of MMCA Seoul is visible through the work; in the gaps between one piece and another; and the areas between the work and the Seoul Box itself. As the title suggests, I wanted to emphasize the convergent nature of the Seoul Box’s site.”

Suh’s earlier works on homes, such as , were titled after the cities in which it was shown, and thus appeared nomadic and adrift. His solo exhibition at the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art in 2012 was titled ≪Home Within Home≫, and consisted of a black box, designed by Rem Koolhaas, containing five homes in which Suh used to live. This element of confluence is further exaggerated in Home Within Home Within Home Within Home Within Home, which Suh explains is more than a newly formed idea.

"This latest piece is an extension of my exploration of personal space, for which the mobility of space is a relevant question. My previous works were titled after the cities in which they were exhibited to highlight their mobility, and here the idea of the "home within the home" is pertinent, because a space cannot exist outside of its context. Hence, this is reason for the works being named after their cities, and in this way, they were naturally homes within the larger home of the city. I think it’s necessary to highlight these themes, for viewers tend to focus only on what is immediately displayed before them."

One of your works which I found particularly interesting at the Leeum, was the drawing Fart in the Wind, and the idea that to eat a meal in New York, digest it over the flight to Seoul, and then fart, thus transporting the food and air of one city to another, was quite amusing. What’s more, the shape of the fart appeared to resemble the form of a house. So in that respect, what does a home mean to the artist, Suh Do-Ho?

"For me, the home is a thing not rooted in one place, but moveable and changeable at any point in time. Thus, it is similar to a fart, impossible to capture but always reappearing in new form."

Your works tend to be understood intuitively by the audience, being simple and clear, such as your home recreated to scale, or a western building clashing with the traditional hanok. Belying the simplicity of concept, the scale and details of your work are overpowering - which suggests the effort involved in their creation. Do you feel a pressure to create works that will impress (create a spectacle)?

"Your comment on simplicity sounds like a compliment as well as a criticism, but either way is fine. Scale and size are two distinct concepts, and in my work, I consider the former over the latter. Details are influenced by the scale of a work, and therefore very important to me. Furthermore, I take effort to realize small and large scales within the same work, because I think that is how our universe works. This is not to say that I prefer to create larger works as opposed to smaller ones, and the same applies to the spectacle, or lack thereof, that I make. The larger size of a work does not translate to its greater impact, and vice versa. Even at the smallest of scales, an artwork may impress and resonate. I think the same applies to life in general. Thus, I never think of the need to make waves while preparing a work. The audience may take away from it what they will, and some of them may think my work inspiring."

Seeking Universality with a Basis in Specificity