John Hurrell – 2 November, 2025

Using a huge, very fine, suspended translucent, polyester-mesh hanging—(with attached thicker sections) to frontally depict the entrance to his father’s studio (an outer brick wall with 4 shuttered windows, 2 glass doors and projecting eaves above)—South Korean artist Do Ho Suh dominates the gallery’s central inner space.

Eight meters wide it showcases the type of traditional dwelling that many Korean academics like to live in. This particular one was the artist’s childhood home, now transformed into a layered, weightless, suspended version, coloured a pale fluorescent green that has considerable wallop. It is optically strident.

It also has a delicate fragility that turns this ethereal sculpture into a metaphor for evanescent memory. A few steps back and many of its intricate visual details (such as hinges, door handles, latches) disappear in a hazy blur to be forgotten, as other built-in architectural objects quickly replace them. The sculpture is hung high above the viewer’s head, so the gridded square modules are impossible to examine as you would say, graph paper on your desk—or a handy green aquarium net for catching goldfish.

Suh’s work teases out the understated impact of wispy vertical planar polyester mesh, making such a ‘wall’ shimmer and float in a light breeze. Inserted steel rods keep the form flat, preventing curling and adding a much-needed stabilizing ballast. As it is frontally aligned it is not designed to enclose or support. Only appear, and be gazed through.

Thus the whole gallery space around it (its height, depth and breadth) can be scrutinized, compared and appreciated—whilst allowing Do Ho Suh’s brilliant autobiographical miragelike construction to optically dominate.

John Hurrell

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