Isn’t it interesting how an artist can be world famous and yet you have never heard of them? Call me a philistine but I have never come across Do Ho Suh before (and I studied architecture). I am very glad that he has come into my consciousness now.
Tracing Time, Do Ho Suh’s first solo exhibition in Scotland opens this weekend and is a must-see exhibition.
Covering several rooms on the ground floor of Modern One on Belford Road, it flows through drawings, lithographic prints, paper sculptures and much more, covering many aspects of his creative life.
Born in Seoul, South Korea in 1962, he gained a Bachelor and then Master of Fine Arts degree in Korea before moving to the United States, practising in New York before moving to London in 2010. His work is shown around the world, including at the 49th Venice Biennale.
Do Ho Suh is one of the world’s leading contemporary artists. His focus is the ways architecture mediates the experience of space and he creates engaging and imaginative artworks that ask questions about home, family and identity. ‘Home’ is so much more than the place you live. Your own version of home is a fundamental part of who you are, influenced by your day-to-day life and your deepest memories.
Do Ho Suh explores some of these fascinating ideas in this exhibition. It presents the artist’s complex and compelling thread drawings, alongside architectural rubbings, paper sculptures, cyanotypes, prints and watercolours.
There is also an immersive installation of Suh’s famed ‘hubs’, life-size sculptures that recreate physical spaces in colourful, translucent fabric. Visitors to the exhibition can enter and move through this innovative reimagining of places meaningful to the artist and his life. This to me was the highlight of the exhibition and I encourage you to walk through the hub – it is an almost other worldly experience.
Shown publicly for the first time are a selection of the artist’s sketchbooks: personal, unconstrained spaces for speculative thinking, in which Suh explores his past, present and future. In this inspiring and timely exhibition, drawing is the connective thread that binds together Do Ho Suh’s creative energies.
Highly recommended.
Do Ho Suh | Tracing Time is supported by National Galleries of Scotland Foundation, Victoria Miro Gallery, London and Venice, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London, Baillie Gifford who have supported the exhibition’s audience development and engagement programme, and STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery, Singapore. Technical support by LG OLED evo.
- Do Ho Suh Tracing Time
- National Galleries of Scotland
- Modern One
- February until Sunday 1 September 2024.
- Admission: free
