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Lot Essay
"My Korean house project was about transporting space from once place to the other, a way of dealing with cultural displacement. I don't really get homesick that much, but I've noticed that I have this longing for a particular space and just want to recreate it or bring it wherever I go. So the choice of material was fabric. I had to make something light and transportable, something that you can fold and put in a suitcase and bring with you all the time" - Do Ho Suh
Do Ho Suh's complex relationship with his native South Korea has long formed the central tenet of his art and his Korean House project is the result of this conflict between the cultural and emotional attachment to his homeland, and the need to forge his own identity in the world. Executed in 1999, this ethereal reconstruction of a room from his parent's house in Seoul is permeated with memories of love, displacement and a sense of belonging. "I was in New York for a year before I went to grad school," the artist recalled. "I was living on 113th Street, near Columbia, and my apartment building was right across the street from the fire station. And it was noisy, really noisy, and I couldn't sleep well. And I was thinking, "When was the last time to have a really good sleep?"[sic] And that was in a small room, back in Korea. And I wanted to bring the house, somehow, to my New York apartment. So, that's where everything started" (D. H. Suh, Seoul Home/L.A. Home-Korea and Displacement, https://www.art21.org/texts/do-ho-suh [accessed January 23, 2012]).
Made from specially commissioned silk fabric, Seoul Home/L.A. Home: Bathroom speaks to Suh's interest in transporting space from one place to another and has become his way of dealing with issues surrounding cultural displacement. Designed to be light enough to be transported in a suitcase, the rooms are a replica of the interior of the artist's family home. The celadon color is reminiscent of jade but was actually picked from the colors of the ceiling in his parent's house. Based on the traditional homes for Korean scholars, the walls were papered white, but the ceiling was covered with sky-blue or jade-colored paper to encourage those inside to think about the wider universe. With its constantly shifting form Seoul Home/L.A. Home: Bathroom becomes an insightful comment on the transitory nature of life, and the importance of finding one's place within it.
Do Ho Suh's complex relationship with his native South Korea has long formed the central tenet of his art and his Korean House project is the result of this conflict between the cultural and emotional attachment to his homeland, and the need to forge his own identity in the world. Executed in 1999, this ethereal reconstruction of a room from his parent's house in Seoul is permeated with memories of love, displacement and a sense of belonging. "I was in New York for a year before I went to grad school," the artist recalled. "I was living on 113th Street, near Columbia, and my apartment building was right across the street from the fire station. And it was noisy, really noisy, and I couldn't sleep well. And I was thinking, "When was the last time to have a really good sleep?"[sic] And that was in a small room, back in Korea. And I wanted to bring the house, somehow, to my New York apartment. So, that's where everything started" (D. H. Suh, Seoul Home/L.A. Home-Korea and Displacement, https://www.art21.org/texts/do-ho-suh [accessed January 23, 2012]).
Made from specially commissioned silk fabric, Seoul Home/L.A. Home: Bathroom speaks to Suh's interest in transporting space from one place to another and has become his way of dealing with issues surrounding cultural displacement. Designed to be light enough to be transported in a suitcase, the rooms are a replica of the interior of the artist's family home. The celadon color is reminiscent of jade but was actually picked from the colors of the ceiling in his parent's house. Based on the traditional homes for Korean scholars, the walls were papered white, but the ceiling was covered with sky-blue or jade-colored paper to encourage those inside to think about the wider universe. With its constantly shifting form Seoul Home/L.A. Home: Bathroom becomes an insightful comment on the transitory nature of life, and the importance of finding one's place within it.