To inaugurate our new second location at 201 Chrystie Street, Lehmann Maupin Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition of Reflection by Do Ho Suh, a continuation of the exhibition at Lehmann Maupin Gallery’s Chelsea location at 540 West 26th Street.
Reflection expands Suh's series of architectural spaces comprised of translucent fabric. During 1990s the artist replicated a number of homes he inhabited at various times around the world. These all culminated in The Perfect Home (2002), an amalgamation of Suh’s fragmented visual memories. Following The Perfect Home, Suh turned towards specific structures of transition such as staircases, hallways, and gates. "The space I'm interested in is not only a physical one, but an intangible, metaphorical and psychological one. For me, space is that which encompasses everything. So in that sense, one could say that my art looks at diverse forms and media through the prism called reflection on space" (Suh, 2003). Reflection is a replica of the gate between the main house and the children's bedroom of Suh's parents' home in Korea. The double gate separated by a translucent floor was first exhibited at the Hermes headquarters in Tokyo and this will be its premier in the United States. The artist believes that the doorway of the gate was intentionally designed low so that all those entering and leaving the home were obliged to bow theirs heads as a way of showing respect. Suh has faithfully re-created each aspect of the original gate from the dragon design to the brickwork. The fabric –– flexible, transparent, porous, and permeable ––blurs the boundaries and conventional definitions of the object. He views it not only as a gate –– or rather the memory of a gate –– but also as a space for individual contemplation. In this way, the viewer is asked to meditate on how one remembers images and space and how these aspects open questions regarding the human mind.
Do Ho Suh was born in 1962 in Seoul, Korea. He earned his BFA and MFA in Oriental Painting from Seoul National University (1987); BFA Painting, Rhode Island School of Design (1994); and MFA Sculpture, Yale University (1997). Selected public and private collections include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; Whitney Museum of America Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art, and Brooklyn Museum of Art all in New York; and Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Selected solo exhibitions include The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA and Hermes, Tokyo, Japan (both 2005); ArtSonje Center, Seoul, Korea and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City (both 2003); Serpentine Gallery, London and Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA (both 2002); Whitney Museum of American Art at Phillip Morris, New York (2001). Suh represented Korea in the 49th Venice Biennale. He is the recipient of numerous awards and currently his work may be seen in RED HOT: Asian Art Today from the Chaney Family Collection, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; All the More Real, The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York; and Downtown Expansion, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA. Peppermint Candy: Contemporary Korean Art, an upcoming exhibition at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires opens in May of next year.
Suh’s work, Cause & Effect is also on view in the gallery’s Chelsea location at 540 West 26th Street along with drawings in various scales. This vast ceiling installation is a composition of densely hung strands that anchor thousands of figures clad in dynamic gradations of intensely warm colors stacked atop one another.