A modern sculpturist from Seoul, Korea, born in 1962. He is best known for his composite scupltures relating the ideas of national identity, individual identity, and the sacrifice of the individual for the collective. Many works include seemingly identical objects used to make a singular piece of art. Some examples include:
- Some/One, 2001. "Some/One" is a cloak-type set of body armor which spreads out to cover the expanse of a room (creating a walkable surface). It is made entirely of metal dog-tags, with random letters and numbers stamped on them. An interesting observation on how the individual loses its identity for the sake of the whole, and yet the whole makes up a new entity or identity in and of itself.
- Floor, 1997-2000. "Floor" consists of 40 modules of plate glass held up by thousands of miniature, plastic men and women. There seem to be about 100 different people and expressions. Many have an oddly pained look on their face, but all have their two hands holding up the plate glass, creating another walkable surface.
- Who am We?, 1996-2000. Perhaps a bit more personal, this peice is made up entirely of pictures (about 100 different faces) from Suh's high school yearbook. The repeated set of faces wallpaper an entire large wall.
- Doormat: Welcome (green), 1998. This peice also uses miniature plastic figurines, but this time they are identical. Again with hands holding up a sheet of plate glass, green people around the outside form a background for beige people spelling out the word "Welcome" in large, flowing letters.
Another medium Suh works in is that of silk and nylon, creating models (some suspended in mid-air) of homes. "The Perfect Home" is a composite group of rooms and hallways from various houses he has lived in. "Seoul Home/L.A. Home/New York Home/Baltimore Home/London Home/Seattle Home" is a model of his childhood home made of green fabric, whose ever-changing title notes all of the cities in which it has been on display.
Dates and other basic info taken from Seattle Art Museum: http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibit/exhibitDetail.asp?WHEN=&eventID=2917 and Universes-in-Universe: http://www.universes-in-universe.de/car/venezia/bien49/kor/e-suh.htm