Do Ho Suh: Specimens

Exhibition Website

Mar 18 2016 - Jul 4 2016

This solo exhibition by artist Do Ho Suh features work ranging from large-scale architectural installations and sculptures, to works on paper and video. Operating within a distinctly twenty-first century global mode, Suh crafts evocative works that reflect ideas of home, identity, and personal space. ... The artist’s sculptures and installations reveal a range of powerful themes, including notions of public versus private space, global identity, memory, and displacement. At the same time, Suh’s works strike viewers with their delicate monumentality, subtle beauty, and intricate construction techniques.

This exhibition will transform MCASD Downtown’s Jacobs Building into a maze-like installation that replicates the artist’s apartment spaces from a single building in New York City. Created in luminous swaths of translucent fabric, the ghostly rooms and hallways are mysteriously supported by a subtle stainless steel armature. Three combined installations — Apartment A, 348 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011, USA (2011–2012); Corridor and Staircase, 348 West 22nd Street New York, NY 10011, USA (2011–2012); and Unit 2, 348 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011, USA (2014) — encourage the public to pass through the ephemeral, dreamlike representation of the artist’s personal history. Rendered in blocks of translucent color, the fabric walls at once conceal and reveal the details articulated within. ... 

In contrast to this bright, airy space, the artist’s Specimen Series (2013) is installed in illuminated vitrines in a darkened gallery. These sculptures replicate appliances and fixtures in exacting detail and, like the larger installations, are constructed entirely out of polyester fabric over a stainless steel framework. The exhibition will also include a selection of works on paper, rendered in thread, watercolor, and pencil, as well as videos and a model from Suh’s 2012 work Secret Garden.

Exhibition overview from the Museum website



  • Various Media
  • Asian
  • Contemporary
  • Southeast Asia
  • Do Ho Suh

Exhibition Venues & Dates