South Korean artist Do Ho Suh is internationally known for his ghostly, diaphanous architecture and fabric-made objects, which create imaginary spaces that are physically present yet impossible to inhabit. His large-scale, immersive, but impermanent installations serve as “acts of memorialization,” exploring themes of identity, home, and the tension between personal and public space. These ideas are confronted within the framework of displacement and cultural transition, reflecting the global mobility of contemporary life.
For this edition of Frieze Seoul, Suh has been invited to collaborate with the fair’s main sponsor, LG, on a project exploring the intergenerational legacies of Korean art while spotlighting the country’s drive for technological innovation. He has been working with his brother, renowned architect Eul Ho Suh, on the digital canvas of LG OLED T, paying homage to their father, Suh Se Ok—a vital figure in Korean ink abstraction, a radical genre that opened artistic possibilities for an entire generation.
Observer spoke with the brothers during the unveiling of “Suh Se Ok X LG OLED: Reimagined by Suh Do Ho” at Frieze Seoul, discussing how the project traces a line between generations of Korean art and its potential future development. The project is, first and foremost, an homage to their father, who pioneered a distinctively Korean approach to visual art. This intergenerational conversation reveals how Korean art and aesthetics have evolved over the decades. As Do Hoh Suh told Observer: “This intensely personal project aims to honor our father’s legacy while also considering the evolution of Korean art. We hope this project will allow for a deeper understanding of our father’s work, highlighting the tradition he represents and the vital philosophical principles he explored throughout his life.”
Se Ok’s work embodies a defining moment in Korean art, linking calligraphy and a specific philosophical approach related to the mark-making moment and gesture to the interconnection between body and mind. “Movement is an integral element in our father’s painting, where bodily gestures create ink strokes on the rice paper,” said the artist, “These marks act as a trace of his action, a record of performance. The idea that these marks on the paper carry the artist’s energy is essential in creating his work, which we felt necessary to share with a broader audience.”
The presentation at Frieze intentionally juxtaposes rarely-seen footage of Suh Se Ok in action alongside his paintings and Do Ho Suh’s animations on the innovatively transparent screens of the LG OLED T, positioned in the space according to how Eul Ho Suh has envisioned and conceived the relation between the marks, the viewers, this new technology and the experience of being in the space. “We hope to invite audiences to engage in a dialogue about art, tradition, and innovation,” Do Ho Suh added.
One highlight of the installation is Suh Se Ok’s People series: minimal black marks and signs absorbed by the paper that evoke human figures while remaining external and abstract, as a synthesis of the vital movements that animate our physical existence. Eul Ho Suh explained that before their father’s influence, Korean art was deeply shaped by traditional Chinese landscapes: “He wanted to go lighter, creating abstract paintings with no colors, just black and white.” When Suh Se Ok started to explore this radical new language in the ’60s, he was teaching at Seoul National University, and many students began to follow the new movement. It wasn’t just about the quality of the application of ink, however. He wanted to bring his energy to the works, with marks that could transfer thought and gesture, with porous paper as a transmitter.
However, what is most interesting about this project is how tradition interacts with technology. In Do Ho Suh’s installation, there’s a similar tension—the work is highly tactile and physical, yet the translucent appearance makes them look more like ghosts or digital renderings. “Although my practice is in many ways indebted to the long history of traditional Korean craftsmanship, it is also profoundly contingent upon new technology,” said the artist, who uses laser scanning, 3D printing, CAD and robotics in his work.
The transparency of the screen in the Frieze installation perfectly aligns with Suh Se Ok’s interest in the infinite and space, some of which the brothers have absorbed and adopted in their native practices. Layering allows for an interplay of opacity and transparency, revealing and concealing images and image planes. “The footage of our father making the paintings is presented here, combined with his writing and the animations, which further reenact the process of the paintings. This is a means to explore these critical principles of his work and reveal this intensely private process to inspire a greater understanding of his ideas.”
Layering also serves to underscore the complexity of the work, according to the artist. The layering of the images on the screens recalls the melding of ink and paper. “This leads to the question: is the painting on or in the paper?” said Do Ho Suh. “The properties of the rice paper allow for these layers to be separated to create near copies—something that straddles the idea of uniqueness and edition—an interrogation of the surface hierarchy.”
“You have all the powerful energy within the movement in an interplay between bidimensional and tridimensional space,” added Eul Ho Suh.
There are the technical elements—the layering techniques employed and the interplay of light and shadow—and those more philosophical. As the brothers noted, the display clarifies the principles underlying much of Eastern painting, enhanced by new technology. It also delves into the concept of transparency (a critical component in Do Ho Suh’s work) as a form of absence or emptiness, a theme central to Suh Se Ok’s work and uniquely interpreted by the two brothers. This idea echoes Buddhist teachings, where emptiness (śūnyatā in Sanskrit) reveals the true nature of things: they lack intrinsic existence, are impermanent, and constantly changing, reliant on various causes and conditions. The spaces between, though typically unseen, gain significance through exploration.
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When asked how the approach and sensibility of Korean artists have transformed over time and how this relates to the rapid societal changes in South Korea, Do Ho Suh said those transformations are a reflection of societal change. “From my father’s time to mine, Korean artists have progressively embraced a more global perspective while maintaining a profound connection to our cultural roots,” he explained. “My time in the U.S. to study in the ’90s proved an essential shift in my appreciation of the differences between Eastern and Western perspectives and exploring the de-mystification of painting—this personal history and my Korean background have been essential themes in my work.”
Ultimately, the project is a powerful statement on the evolution of artistic approaches and languages in South Korea, from the radical innovation explored by Suh Se Ok to the opportunities offered by the digital space and new technologies. In this sense, the installation’s screens both memorialize the past and serve as a portal to Korea’s future.
Memory is, in fact, at the heart of this project, as Do Ho Suh suggests. While art can document, help visualize and help imagine, this particular installation explores how art can also become a tool for oral and cultural memory. The artist calls the interplay of collective and personal memory in his work essential, but there are caveats to that assertion. “Exploring memory, both its fallibility and pervasiveness remains intriguing to me, but not in a nostalgic sense,” he said. “Memory not only helps document our past but also helps visualize our thoughts for the future. Our father’s paintings also act as memories of his actions, snapshots of his movement through time.”
To Do Ho Suh, art is a vessel for memories. “Our unique and privileged insight into our father’s work and the process of its making has led us to this project—it could be seen as an attempt to create a tangible manifestation of our intangible memories, an opportunity to revisit them and share them.”
“Suh Se Ok X LG OLED: Reimagined by Suh Do Ho” is on view at Frieze Seoul from September 4 to September 8.
