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Lot Essay
Some/One executed in 2001, represents Do Ho Suh's interest in individual and collective identity. In the tradition of minimalist sculpture (Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Carl Andre) Do Ho Suh's work explores how installation and sculpture transform public and private spaces. Unlike some minimalist examples, they contain a painstaking amount of intricate detail that is not always apparent at first sight but is an integral part of the artwork. Some/One, as the title of the work indicates, juxtaposes the collective--represented by a larger-than-life armor sculpture--and the individual, consisting of life-size shiny-metal dog tags, each unique and representing a single soldier. This allegory is carried forward by contrasting the hard, insensitive character of armor with the delicate aspect of the dog tags, which are made up of thin sheets of metal and embody the poetic symbolism of fallen warriors. The artist himself states:
I wanted to come to the U.S. even before I joined the army. But I think, in the army, I experienced what it means to be dehumanized. So, that was tough. I was challenged in many different ways, physically, but also it wasn't like the army that I always imagined. It was a very difficult time, but at the same time, I'm glad that I did it. Every man talks about it, their own experience in the military. You know, like, when you have a drink with someone, and it's just unbelievable. They're unbelievable stories. And also they were funny times. Great times, too, unreal mostly...
Some/One evolved from my first sculpture, Metal Jacket. I had a dream one day after I finished Metal Jacket that I wanted to turn it into some kind of larger installation. The dream was quite vivid. It was night, and I was outside a stadium, approaching it from the distance, and I saw a light in the stadium. So I thought, 'There's some kind of activity going on there.' And as I approached, I started to hear clicking sounds, like the sound when metal pieces touch together. It was like there were thousands of crickets in the stadium. And then I entered the stadium. I walked slowly, but I went into the stadium on the ground level. And then I saw this reflecting surface and I realized I was stepping on these metal pieces that were military dog tags. And they were vibrating slightly, vibrating and touching each other. The sound was from that. From afar I saw the central figure in the center of the stadium. It tried to go out of the stadium but it couldn't because the train of its garment, which was made of dog tags, was just too big. It was just too big to pull all the dog tags. So that was a dream and the image that I got. After that I made a small drawing about this vast field of military dog tags on the ground and a small figure in the center. Obviously I could not create the piece exactly as I dreamt it, but that was the kind of impact I wanted to create through that piece (M. Sollins, Art: 21 Art in the Twenty-First Century, vol. 2. New York, 2003).
I wanted to come to the U.S. even before I joined the army. But I think, in the army, I experienced what it means to be dehumanized. So, that was tough. I was challenged in many different ways, physically, but also it wasn't like the army that I always imagined. It was a very difficult time, but at the same time, I'm glad that I did it. Every man talks about it, their own experience in the military. You know, like, when you have a drink with someone, and it's just unbelievable. They're unbelievable stories. And also they were funny times. Great times, too, unreal mostly...
Some/One evolved from my first sculpture, Metal Jacket. I had a dream one day after I finished Metal Jacket that I wanted to turn it into some kind of larger installation. The dream was quite vivid. It was night, and I was outside a stadium, approaching it from the distance, and I saw a light in the stadium. So I thought, 'There's some kind of activity going on there.' And as I approached, I started to hear clicking sounds, like the sound when metal pieces touch together. It was like there were thousands of crickets in the stadium. And then I entered the stadium. I walked slowly, but I went into the stadium on the ground level. And then I saw this reflecting surface and I realized I was stepping on these metal pieces that were military dog tags. And they were vibrating slightly, vibrating and touching each other. The sound was from that. From afar I saw the central figure in the center of the stadium. It tried to go out of the stadium but it couldn't because the train of its garment, which was made of dog tags, was just too big. It was just too big to pull all the dog tags. So that was a dream and the image that I got. After that I made a small drawing about this vast field of military dog tags on the ground and a small figure in the center. Obviously I could not create the piece exactly as I dreamt it, but that was the kind of impact I wanted to create through that piece (M. Sollins, Art: 21 Art in the Twenty-First Century, vol. 2. New York, 2003).