‘Karma’ installed at Albright-Knox
Denise Jewell Gee
BUFFALO -- Artist Do Ho Suh carefully calculated where to place his sculpture before it was lowered to the ground outside the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
The 23-foot bronze sculpture, known as "Karma," needed to be visible from inside the gallery and on view for cars that pass by the exhibit.
Hundreds of miles away, an identical piece by Suh has been placed in Austin, Texas, by a private collector.
"One can almost imagine these two pieces having a kind of relationship to each other across the country," said Bruce W. Ferguson, consultant for "Beyond/In Western New York."
The sculpture depicts a standing figure with a series of increasingly smaller crouching figures atop his shoulder.
"One of the things that Do Ho always works with is some sense of history," Ferguson said as the sculpture was being installed. "Where ever you stand, somebody is on your shoulder and you're on someone else's shoulders."
Suh, of Seoul, Korea, is one of several invited artists from outside Western New York and Southern Ontario participating in the months-long, regional exhibition known as "Beyond/In Western New York." The event opens Thursday.
Suh's piece, created for "Beyond/ In Western New York," will leave its mark on the region well after the biennial wraps up in December. "Karma" will remain a permanent piece at the Albright-Knox.