We tend to think of the home as a solid and fixed object, a built environment that serves protection from the outside world and all of its conditions. One might spend time in designing and furnishing the interior of the rooms within, but even then, it may not be one’s permanent dwelling and is even more likely not to be a lifelong place of residence.
This is a huge consideration within the work of South Korean artist Do Ho Suh, whose show Passage/s utilises installation, video and works on paper to absorb the viewer in moments of heighted experience of the home. In the process we are invited to readdress the home itself as just that; places where experiences occur, life is registered and time is shared amongst people – all of which we realise may well occur in more than one such interior environment.
The standout work within the show Hub is a development of the artist’s best know works – one-to-one scale replica constructions of sections of homes in which he has lived, all created in meticulous detail with coloured translucent fabrics, stitch and metal rods.
Each of the different sections are denoted not only by their inherent variations in scale and form, with details ranging from carved coving to fire extinguishers to fire alarm control panels, but also by a new colour of fabric and yarn.
Once joined end-to-end the resulting 25 metre piece forms a corridor, or to use the artist's more metaphorically inclined term, 'passage'.
In passing through this ever-changing space, one is not only wowed by the stunning detail of the construction but also overwhelmed by the sense of 'public' and 'private' embodied by the translucent material; you are both in and out at the same time.
The piece is highly measured in terms of the literal accuracy in which it creates an accurate 3-D representation of the original spaces it references, but also in that it deliberately asks the viewer to reassess the boundaries that we all cross, the changes that we all go through and the movements that we physically and psychologically experience throughout our lives.
As Suh explains: “I see life as a passageway, with no fixed beginning or destination. We tend to focus on the destination all the time and forget about the in-between spaces. But without these mundane spaces that nobody really pays attention to, these grey areas one cannot get from point A to point B.”
The works on paper fix another of these mundane, overlooked and yet highly significant pieces of infrastructure found within our lives, entrances. Slightly wobbly yet highly detailed stitch and gelatin embedded drawings on handmade cotton paper hover on the surface like ghostly shadows.
Suh renders these physical structures as metaphorical emblems; an entrance is only a passageway through when it is open. These works tempt us to examine and appreciate their detail, but they remain closed.
Do Ho Suh Passage/s runs until 18 th March at Victoria Miro – so if you’re quick, you can catch it!
