“At some point in life, you have to leave your home. When you go back, it’s not the same home anymore.” One: Do Ho Suh features a single large-scale work my Korean-born artist Do Ho Suh, whose work engages with migration and cultural displacement. This is the final week to experience this full-scale re-creation of the artist's former Chelsea apartment, where he lived for 19 years. See it before it closes Sunday May 5.
Do Ho Suh (born Seoul, South Korea, 1962). The Perfect Home II, 2003. Translucent nylon. Brooklyn Museum; Gift of Lawrence B. Benenson, 2017.46. Photo Jonathan Dorado
The Perfect Home II is an early example of what was to become Do Ho Suh’s lifelong engagement with the theme of home, which emerged after his arrival in the U.S. He felt culturally displaced and longed for home, experiences common to many new immigrants.
See it in One: Do Ho Suh through May 5.
Do Ho Suh (born Seoul, South Korea, 1962). The Perfect Home II, 2003. Translucent nylon. Brooklyn Museum; Gift of Lawrence B. Benenson, 2017.46. Photo Jonathan Dorado
How do you bring multiple voices into a museum? Film is a great way to do that, especially when you’re showcasing art from somewhere an ocean away from the galleries.
The exhibition One: Egúngún is accompanied by the full-length documentary film One: Egúngún Perspectives from Nigeria, featuring excerpts from interviews with eight Nigerian scholars, artists, and masquerade specialists. Presenting various forms of knowledge from speakers with different expertise, and of different ages and genders, these interviews bring multiple perspectives and additional depth to the exhibition’s presentation of a singular mid-twentieth century egúngún masquerade costume now in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum.
Filmed on location in Lagos, Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Ìbàdàn, and Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́ in 2018, each interview reflects the unique experiences and knowledge of the speaker. Totaling some seven hours of raw footage, they were edited down into segments addressing key questions including: How have Yorùbá masquerades influenced popular culture? What role do oríkì (poetry) and song play in Yorùbá egúngún masquerades? What is it like to grow up with masquerade?
Open captions (written out versions of the text that always appear on the in-gallery monitor) make the audio of the interviews accessible to our visitors who are deaf or hard of hearing, or for those who don’t want to use headphones.
There are many ways to consider an egúngún, from the religious, to the artistic, to the philosophical, but only so much space on the exhibition walls and labels. With the addition of film in the galleries, we can bring in a wider range of perspectives and information.
Keep an eye out for more excerpts from these interviews on our social media accounts in the coming weeks!
Posted by Kristen Windmuller-Luna
Many thanks are due to everyone who worked with me on this film. Thanks to Perrin Lathrop, Benson Eluma, and Solomon Dodo for their help with filming in Nigeria. At the Brooklyn Museum, exhibition interns Isoken Osagie and Noemi Diop for their transcriptions of the interviews, and BNIA intern Jose-Romarah Chary for her additional assistance transcribing; Anya Szykitka for editing the transcription texts and open-access captions; and Robert Nardi for editing and captioning the film.
“Home is something you carry along with your life. I deal with that issue visually. . . . I had to make something that’s light and transportable, something that you can fold and put in a suitcase and bring with you all the time.”
— Do Ho Suh.
Just a few weekends left to step inside Suh's The Perfect Home II. See One: Do Ho Suh before it packs up May 5.
Do Ho Suh (born Seoul, South Korea, 1962). The Perfect Home II, 2003. Translucent nylon. Brooklyn Museum; Gift of Lawrence B. Benenson, 2017.46. Photo Jonathan Dorado
Take advantage of the final weekend to walk within One: DoHoSuh—a full-scale re-creation of the artist’s former NYC apartment his home for 19 years. Stroll inside, snap a pic, and use #mybkm like recent visitors @alexknezo @imarti @clairederr @a.n.larson @colbstay @fomofeed @laymanamyal @demi.jpeg @alizajs and @miminisanat.
On his choice of materials to evoke place and memory, Do Ho Suh has observed: “In a physically [minimal] way it’s this light fabric thing that can recreate this ambiance of a space. I didn’t want to sit down and cry for home. I wanted to more actively deal with these issues of longing.”
Do Ho Suh (born Seoul, South Korea, 1962). The Perfect Home II, 2003. Translucent nylon. Brooklyn Museum; Gift of Lawrence B. Benenson, 2017.46. Photo Jonathan Dorado
The process of obtaining the apartment on West Twenty-second Street entailed an interview with the landlord, who, upon learning that Suh was an artist, expressed some concern that he might not be able to pay the rent. But after he moved in, the landlord allowed Suh to do whatever he wanted in the house. That gave Suh the freedom he needed to meticulously measure the public hallways at 4 a.m.—before other residents in the building were up—in preparation for constructing The Perfect Home II (2003).
Do Ho Suh (born Seoul, South Korea, 1962). The Perfect Home II, 2003. Translucent nylon. Brooklyn Museum; Gift of Lawrence B. Benenson, 2017.46.
Yorùbá culture is as alive in Brooklyn as it is in Benin, Nigeria, Brazil, and other parts of Africa and its diasporas. To open the exhibition One: Egúngún on February 8, a small group of Brooklyn Museum staffers joined members of the local Yorùbá community in a private blessing ceremony. Guests were welcomed by the exhibition’s curator, and then led in prayer by Chief Ayanda Clarke, a local community leader and Ajibilu Awo of Oṣogbo (Nigeria), as well as a contributor to the exhibition.
During this deeply moving moment, libations were poured for the ancestors (all who have come before us and influenced us in so many ways), the collaborative work behind the exhibition was celebrated, and meaningful relationships were reinforced.
Throughout the ceremony, participants repeated the word àṣẹ. Àṣẹ, which underlies all things in the Yorùbá worldview, is conceived broadly as an effective life force present in all animate and inanimate things as well as spoken words. A generative power, àṣẹ makes things happen: it is àṣẹ that enables an egúngún to bridge the world of the living and the ancestral otherworld, and àṣẹ that amplifies ancestral blessings. And it is àṣẹ, brought forward through blessings in both English and in Yorùbá that filled the galleries with positive energy.
It is with this spirit of positivity, celebration, and collaboration that the galleries of One: Egúngún opened. In just two weeks, they have already welcomed visitors from Nigeria, South Africa, Canada, Scotland, and the United States to a space filled with àṣẹ.
