Do-Ho Suh

Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in April 2002

St. Louis, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, On the Margins: Displacement, Individuality, and Transcendence, February 2008 - April 2008 (another example exhibited)
New York, Museum of Arts & Design, Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary, September 2008 - April 2009 (another example exhibited)

This work and the supporting base armature appears in very good condition overall. All of the dog-tags appear to be sound and secure. There are scattered dust accretions throughout the surface, otherwise there are no apparent condition problems with this work.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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The present work, Metal Jacket, is a densely precise grouping of three thousand dog tags ordained into the shape of a hollowed sterling military jacket. At a first glance the dog tags pointedly recall the physical image of the soldiers that could have worn them while serving their country. Upon close inspection, however, the dog tags are embossed with nothing more than random and meaningless words, rather than the identifying agents for individuals in service. This paradox deftly anesthetizes the ability for any personal association or emotion, and challenges one to associate what was intended as a deeply individualistic, to a universal and communal experience. Metal Jacket engages the viewer in a confrontation with his own gaze peeking out from the mirroring facets, which in turn become the collective other encasing the jacket's argently framed void. As the artist himself asserted, "Often, people, even critics, think that my work is about individuality, disappearing into anonymity. But it's not. I don't think anonymity exists actually. It's just a convenient way to describe a certain situation. It's our problem not to see certain individuals, or not to see difference or individuality. I just want to recognize them." (Do Ho Suh, quoted in Susan Sollins, Art: 21 Art in the Twenty-First Century, vol. 2, New York, 2003).