By Ann-Marie Stillion
Northwest Asian Weekly

At first glance, Do-Ho Suh's rise in the art world seems meteoric. And it is an understatement to say that Suh is well educated. He may be one of the best-educated artists working under the limelight of the art world today. With two BFAs and two master's degrees in two disciplines from two continents, he has spent more than 15 years in art school.

Just five years out of school, his work is experienced globally and seen in some of the world's most important museums, including the Whitney in New York. In 2001, he represented Korea in the prestigious Venice Biennale.

The 39-year-old artist came to America to marry his wife, a Korean American, and emerged from some of the country's best art schools to find a gallery in New York and support for the yearnings of his heart.

He has turned the immigrant experience on its side, on its head and inside out to discover not it, but himself as an artist. Although museums, galleries and the art world are quick to attach labels to him, Suh chafes at their efforts.

"American, Korean. Korean. American. . . . I think it is ever changing," he said recently as he installed his pieces at the Seattle Art Museum. "(The labels) are just for the convenience. It could be interpreted different ways and I really don't like those kinds of titles.

"I am not denying that I am a Korean-born artist, but that puts you in the situation of 'Oh, his work has Korean identity.' It's so easy to fall into a stereotype."

Suh's "Some/One," a work in the shape of a large jacket made of dog tags, fills the room with a presence that is at once ominous and beautiful, even seductive. Visitors are invited to walk onto the piece.

It's common for people to tell Suh that it reminds them of ancient Korean armor. "Americans think it's Korean, and even Koreans think it is Korean. The shape reminds them of armor, but the shape was derived from a U.S. military jacket liner," he explains.

At times like these, he's reminded of the limitations of being considered a Korean-born artist, which he is so often called.

"If you start with 'Korean-born artist,' then you start to pigeonhole and don't see other things. I am kind of sensitive about it. Especially in London. It was harder to be perceived as just an artist in Europe, more so than in America, where there is more diversity," Suh said.

When he began school at Rhode Island School of Design in 1991, he was much older than most of the other students. He already had a BFA and MFA in Oriental painting from Seoul National University and had no intention of becoming a sculptor. He started painting Western-style. Then, by accident, he took a sculpture class.

"It changed my life. . . . When I started to make sculpture, I didn't feel like it was an experiment. I felt like I had been waiting for that moment. Sculpture, three-dimensional work, installation work is what I want to do for the rest of my life . . . That was something that came from my heart," said the artist.

He moved to New York in 1997 and began a formal art career. When he first came to the "States," as he calls it, the works in the current survey at the Seattle Art Museum and the Seattle Asian Art Museum really began, or at least the conceptualization of them did.

The exploration of space is what fascinates Suh. What most take for granted, he turns in his mind, then on the drawing board and finally in the vaulted spaces of galleries and museums.

"Our clothing is the most intimate and smallest habitual space that you carry. That is where my work starts. . . . Sometimes I use clothing literally. When you expand that idea, it becomes architecture.

"Ideally, there is no separation between the existing floor and the piece. You are surrounded by art. You can walk on the art. When you walk on the piece, you 'realize' where you are on the piece. . . . Everything is touchable. I like the idea. It becomes more real, not just art," Suh said.

Another installation in the current exhibit is the wallpaper "Who Am We?" What could be more innocuous than the household treatment of walls?, you ask. Suh has had other ideas, it seems. His work often plays on what is least noticed.

He points to the far wall. "For example, the wallpaper. You don't know what's going on until you get very close, and then you discover that the whole wall is covered with faces. Your experience shifts and it becomes something else. I like the idea of you using all of your senses, not just eyes. I want you to feel."

The mix of emotions that the artist's work generates has also culminated in a work called "Seoul Home/LA Home/Baltimore Home/New York Home/London Home," to which "Seattle Home" will soon be added. The title of the piece grows as it travels the world.

"Home" hangs at the Seattle Asian Art Museum in this exhibit. The fabric piece travels quite literally in two suitcases, and was begun as a way for Suh to deal with his own homesickness in a constructive way. Modeled after a traditional Korean rural house, the piece is seen as just that — a rural home that everyone can relate to.

"I think the home can be repeated infinitely," Suh said. "You have to make yourself comfortable in your environment. Every time you move, you bring your psychological baggage. Then you have homesickness and you have to go with that.

"The fabric house is transportable. The transportability is the key idea for that piece. It is about transporting space. It's my way of dealing with displacement.

. . . It's a kind of gesture of moaning. There is a sense of sadness. You want to carry your home with you wherever you go. . . . That's why I came up with the idea of fabric all packed in a suitcase. Two suitcases. That's how I carry it."

Suh's work expresses a longing for a home that is no longer there. Using the artist's tools of examination and reflection, he uses his experiences to better understand himself and his journey.

"Let's say you spend 10 years in the States and you change the way you eat, the way you interact with your world. Meanwhile, things back home, especially Korea, are changing. Sometimes I can't recognize it. So it's never been the same. And you feel that it's different than when I was there.

"It is just naive thoughts that you can go back anytime. You miss certain things, and then when you go back you get disappointed. It's not what you are looking for. You are in between two or three cultures and just wandering around."