INTERVIEW with Suh Doho
Q. Please tell us about the overall process of this project, in which Sanjeong Suh Seok’s two sons create a unique space, inspired by their late father’s artworks.
A. My brother and I grew up watching our father work. When he was working day and night to prepare for an exhibition, the entire family would join in support. As a child, I started out by grinding the ink stick to prepare his ink. As an adult, I helped by photographing him at work, filming documentaries, organizing exhibitions and publishing his catalogs. Naturally, I observed his work process from up close, and was given the opportunity to understand his world of art better than anyone.
Because my father was not particularly active in promoting his work and worldview, I have long felt the need to introduce his profound works and philosophy to the world, based on my own experience. This project was made possible by LG Electronics’ precious and timely proposal. In creating this project, I did not begin simply from a single motive, but undertook a non-linear process, considering many factors simultaneously in setting the direction and conceiving the work.
Q. What were the criteria for selecting the seven works by artist Suh Seok that will be shown for the first time at this exhibition? How do the traditional paintings, the new digital video work, and the space where they are presented, connect with one another?
A. My father created thousands of works during his lifetime. He and our whole family shared the understanding that his works from the late 1970s to the early 1980s were particularly important, as this was when the abstract human forms began to appear. But since the actual works were rarely introduced in Korea, we decided to take this opportunity to select some of the important works from that time, to reinterpret and share them with viewers.
Collaborating with my brother was an organic and intuitive process that considered many factors at once. It was a method of first putting on the table all the elements necessary to compose the exhibition, and coordinating them step by step. I believe this was possible because we were already on the same page with regard to many issues. The principle we set forth was that we would reinterpret Sanjeong Suh Seok’s world of art in a way that no one had ever experienced before, while utilizing the features of LG Electronics’ transparent OLED TV to the maximum.
What was important here was that we had been able to actually see these works being made. Based on that experience, we made a digital video (animation) series with the small works expressing the human figure in abstract form. Each short animation is a visualization of the process through which the human forms were created on the paper, based on our memories of our father channeling his energy to give life to his work, stroke by stroke.
Giunsaengdong (rhythmic vitality) is a core concept in East Asian art theory, and something that my father always emphasized. His painting was a continuity of movement, resembling a kind of performative art or qigong exercise, and his paintings were the results and traces of that movement. Therefore, based on our experience of standing by our father’s side and watching him paint, we added “movement” to the images with the hope that spectators would also be able to see Suh Seok’s world of art from a different perspective.
At the entrance of the exhibition venue, spectators first encounter a fabric installation representing the site-specific large-scale painting formerly presented at Maison Hermès, Tokyo in 2007. Through this work, they can experience the transparent and spatial aspects of my father’s paintings physically, or in analogue form. Next, they may feel the aspects of time and the sense of energy from LG’s transparent OLED TV. Such overlapping of diverse layers is not only an intuitive experience of the process through which a painting is made, but also demonstrates our hope to reveal that Suh Seok’s paintings are not stationary, but retain the element of “time.” That is to say, the paintings by Suh Seok seen and understood by my brother and me are paintings that are alive and moving, paintings containing “giunsaengdong” from the beginning. Illuminating this idea was the key objective of this project.
INTERVIEW with Suh Eulho
Q. As you and your brother collaborate on an exhibition based on the works of your father, artist Suh Seok, what does this project mean to you?
A. I have collaborated with my brother Do Ho on various projects including the Venice Biennale of Architecture (2010), and the Gwangju Biennale (2012), in the professional context of installation artist and architect. Based on our mutual trust and the conversations accumulated through our collaborations, we share a very special creative process that surpasses general collaborative relations. This project was especially meaningful because it was an opportunity for two sons to reimagine their father’s artworks. Because we have lived and breathed our father’s art, we were able to understand what we must and must not do just by looking into each other’s eyes.
Q. What were the roles you focused on in preparing for the project, as architect Suh Eulho and as artist Suh Doho?
A. Do Ho and I do not just share an artistic connection. We have similar standards and ideas about the fundamentals. Daily conversations enable us to work together without conflict, while respecting fundamental values even in creative projects. Based on a clear understanding of Do Ho’s video exhibition concept, I did my best to design a space signifying the reimagination of a father’s work by his children.
The full interview can be found at the link below.