Do-Ho Suh

This work is number 3 from an edition of 3

Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York
Tiroche DeLeon Collection

This work is generally in good condition. There are occasional handling marks on the surface.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

“The common misunderstanding is that my work is a confrontation, a clash of cultures. It’s not really about that. It’s about interdependency and the way things coexist. That’s what I’m interested in, how to survive, how to blend in.”

Of Karmic Proportions
Do-Ho Suh

Do-Ho Suh is an artist whose nomadic lifestyle—a perennial globetrotter working between Seoul, New York and London—plays a key role in the conceptualisation of his art, and immediately sets him apart from his contemporaries. Born in 1962 in Seoul, Suh earned his BFA and MFA degrees in Oriental Painting from Seoul National University. After two years of serving in the South Korean military, he relocated to the United States in his late twenties, furthering his studies first at the Rhode Island School of Design, and later at Yale University. This unique, international perspective is the reason behind the edge to Suh’s art, one which is capable to inspect culture in a cross-cultural manner that is unmatched. Over the course of a career that has spanned more than two decades, Suh has exhibited in countless major museums, including the MoMA, the Guggenheim Museum, the MoCA, as well as Tate Modern. From an invitation in 2001 to represent Korea in the Venice Biennale, to winning the Wall Street Journal Magazine’s Innovator of the Year in Art award in 2013, Suh is an artist who continually transcends culture and merges time and space.

Thus, Suh’s art is one that is a culmination of his life spent in the proverbial melting pot of various cities. “The common misunderstanding,” the artist admits, “is that my work is a confrontation, a clash of cultures. It’s not really about that. It’s about interdependency and the way things coexist. That’s what I’m interested in, how to survive, how to blend in.”¹ This meditation on “interdependency” and coexistence, and the notions of the individual versus the collective, is one that is at the heart of Suh’s philosophy, and it can be seen no clearer than in the present sculptural piece, Karma (Lot 154).

Karma was completed in 2010, and is a smaller replica of a 7 metre work of the same name, which has been displayed in various locales globally, including New York as well as Sydney, such as at the Albright Knox Gallery, Beyond/In Western New York 2010: Alternating Currents. The present work—of which a mere 3 editions have been made worldwide—has previously been shown at the Lehmann Maupin gallery. From afar, Karma resembles an intricate spinal cord of sorts, extending into the ceiling, but upon closer inspection, the work reveals a tower of men. Atop a standing man is a curving pillar of crouching figures, each perched on the previous one’s shoulders; each shielding the previous man’s eyes while having his own shielded too.

Karma is a piece that philosophises on an individual’s power to propel his own life forward. Through the repetition of forms—here the crouching men—the artist probes the complexities that arise between the individual and the collective. Karma questions the strength of an individual to break away from the path of his forefathers, and whether or not he can avoid blindly committing the same mistakes. Perhaps one may conclude that Suh is rather pessimistic when it comes to this predicament: as evidenced by the blind men—stretching on an infinitum—perhaps one will continue blundering into the same faults, as if blind, and oblivious to errors that are in plain sight.

And yet this piece carries a hopeful message. As the viewer stands outside of the piece, we are necessarily outside of this karmic cycle, being the victors who escaped the vicious sequence of faults. The fragility of human nature—to err—is here juxtaposed with Suh’s media of steel and stone, both strong and resolute agents that reflect the potentials of human strength, making this piece both a unique and in-depth examination of humanity itself.

It is clear that the notion of karma has interested Suh for some time. In 2003, the artist completed a large-scale sculptural piece of the same name. This work depicted a gargantuan foot seemingly crushing miniscule figurines with outstretched palms. The following year, in 2004, Suh produced a series of lithographs also named Karma depicting the same topical concern. These showed the same curving pillar of men, atop a walking figure. This pillar of men balances precariously, one figure on top of another, fading away near the top right hand corner. In both of these works exists a preoccupation with the concept of continuity, yet they are not as concretely explored as in the present lot.

The present Karma is undoubtedly a mature development on the study of continuity and permanence, representative of a concentrated 4 year investigation on the artist’s part, lasting between the years of 2007 to 2011. But aside from this, Karma also deftly combines many other elements of Suh’s oeuvre. Much like the 2000 work Who Am We? (a wall made up of miniature school portraits), or indeed the  2001 Some/One (a traditional garb made from hundreds of military dog tags), Karma is an art piece that ponders the extent of one’s individuality, and the liminal interactions between existing and coexisting; of independence and interdependence. And yet, we are never confronted by this as forcefully as in Karma. The arresting piece begs of us an in-depth reconsideration of the individual: Is man simply a result of the past, or does he exist beyond it—just as we do when we witness the work? 

Karma is also a reworking of Suh’s many pieces exploring the notion of dehumanisation. The artist has spoken about the “cloning” of his youth, when all students had to sport identical black uniforms and identical short hair. He further shares his experience during his time with the Korean military, where he claims he underwent “dehumanisation”. In both cases, Suh’s encounters with “dehumanisation” involve the act of obliterating individuality, making sure all experience is one and the same. This apparently streamlined experience is recreated in Karma, where all the men are pursuing duplicated fates.

The art historian Janet Kraynak once concluded that “Suh’s artworks perform an extraordinary elaboration upon the spatial expansion of the sculptural object initiated in postwar art by Minimalism. Conceived as a field rather than a discrete thing, sculpture in Minimalism became experiential, temporal and interactive, directly addressing the perceptual conditions of the beholder. Minimalism’s transformation of the terms of viewing is both recognised and dramatised in Suh’s art in its continual tweaking of the conditions of beholding.”²As Kraynak observes, Suh’s works are not solitary, one-way experiences. They are inclusive, and by nature command a response and participation from its audience.

In such a way, Karma is an irrefutably powerful and contemplative piece, one that stands to continually question our very existence, and to encourage us to do the same.

1 Suzanne Muchnic , “Do Ho Suh at LACMA: ‘Fallen Star 1/5’ Portrays a House Divided”, Los Angeles Times, 2009
2 Janet Kraynak, “Traveling in Do-Ho Suh’s World”, Do Ho Suh, The Korean Culture and Arts Foundation, 2001