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Do Ho Suh "Rubbing / Loving"

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I have a mutual friend who was[br]giving up this flat.

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And so I took it.

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I never lived anywhere else in [br]New York City--

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this is the first and the last place.

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I had an interview with my landlord.

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They heard that I'm an artist.

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They were really [br]concerned

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They were not sure whether I could [br]actually pay the rent.

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But they let me live here.

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It was my living space and studio[br]for eighteen years.

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My artistic career started from here.

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The whole process is to remember the space[br]

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and also somehow memorialize the space.

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Whoever is going to buy this place[br]is going to renovate the space

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and everything is going to go.

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It is quite a meaningful place[br]for the family--

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and also for me.

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I've been moving around since I left Korea

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I'm living in London now.

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It's a constant recalibration.

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I try to understand my life as a movement[br]through different spaces.

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--You can do this, as well

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--Yeah, don't worry.

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--I know...

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--We just fixed it!

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--Yeah

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After this project is done[br]and peeled away from the space,

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I'll probably pack it and[br]show it somewhere in the future.

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It's a bit difficult to take it off[br]from the objects,

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but once you do that carefully,[br]it still contains the shape of the object.

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I was constantly seeking[br]some other means to

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capture the information of the space

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that was lacking from my fabric version.

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When I discovered it by rubbing,

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it just brought the memories[br]associated with those details.

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And there's hundreds of thousands of it.

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When I did fabric versions of this space,

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Arthur, the landlord,[br]was supporting my project emotionally.

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You know, I don't know how much[br]he understood

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what I was doing back then,

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but he always let me do crazy things[br]in this space.

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If I write "rubbing" in Korean,

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people could read it as "loving"

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because there's no distinction between[br]"r" and "l" in Korean alphabet.

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I think the gesture of rubbing is[br]a very loving gesture.

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So, I made the connection[br]between rubbing and loving,

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and that's how the title came about.

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My energy has been accumulated,

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and in way, I think, my rubbing shows that

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The darker area--doorknobs and locks--

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that's the objects

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that you touch [br]every time

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And just imagine how many times [br]that I actually

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flip that light switch when[br]I was living in here for eighteen years.

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I'm trying to show the layers of time.

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From the distance, it looks like a drawing

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As you get closer, it becomes very sculptural[br]and three-dimensional.

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There's a point where it sort of changes[br]from two-dimensional to three-dimensional.

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Arthur, he was suffering with[br]Alzheimer's disease.

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A few months before he passed away,

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I made a special effort to see him.

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He warned me that he may not remember me.

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I was prepared for that,

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but we ended up talking two hours.

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So at the end of the day,

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I asked him to come down[br]to see what we were doing.

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I showed him around and then he said,

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"Oh, there's nothing much to see!"

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You know, which is understandable.

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But then he sat down and told me,

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"You're welcome to do[br]whatever you want to do in this house."

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And I was almost going to burst into tears

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because that's exactly what he told me[br]you know, thirteen years ago,

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when I was measuring the hallway[br]at 4 o'clock in the morning

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because I didn't want to disturb[br]other people.

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He came down so quietly

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and then saw me measuring the corner

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and he said, "What are you doing?"

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And I tried to explain

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you know, about the project,

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but he said the exact same thing:

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"Do whatever you want to do."