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Do Ho Suh: "Rubbing / Loving" | Art21 "Exclusive"

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    [Do Ho Suh: "Rubbing / Loving"]
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    I have a mutual friend who was
    giving up this flat.
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    And so I took it.
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    I never lived anywhere else in 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 concerned.
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    They were not sure whether I could 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
    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,
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    and also somehow memorialize the space.
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    Whoever is going to buy this place
    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 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
    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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    --[WOMAN] We just fixed it!
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    [ALL LAUGH]
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    --[SUH] Yeah.
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    After this project is done
    and peeled away from the space,
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    I'll probably pack it and
    show it somewhere in the future.
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    It's a bit difficult to take it off
    from the objects,
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    but once you do that carefully,
    it still contains the shape of the object.
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    I was constantly seeking
    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
    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,
    was supporting my project emotionally.
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    You know, I don't know how much he understood
    what I was doing back then,
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    but he always let me do crazy things
    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
    "r" and "l" in Korean alphabet.
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    I think the gesture of rubbing is
    a very loving gesture.
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    So, I made the connection
    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 that you touch every time.
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    And just imagine how many times that I actually
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    flip that light switch when
    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
    and three-dimensional.
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    There's a point where it sort of changes
    from two-dimensional to three-dimensional.
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    Arthur, he was suffering with
    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
    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
    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
    you know, thirteen years ago,
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    when I was measuring the hallway
    at 4 o'clock in the morning
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    because I didn't want to disturb 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 [LAUGHS]
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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."
Title:
Do Ho Suh: "Rubbing / Loving" | Art21 "Exclusive"
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"Extended Play" series
Duration:
06:17

English subtitles

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