Do-Ho Suh
Korean 1962 – Present
Unsung Founders, 2005
Marble and Bronze Sculpture
McCorkle Place, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Gift from the class of 2002
Commissioned by the class of 2002 as a memorial for the unrecognized contributions of African American men and women who helped build the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Do-Ho Suh’s Unsung Founders is typical of his work. He expresses the metaphorical representation of character and use of space in his artworks while addressing social injustice among minority groups. Suh’s sculpture The Unsung Founders illustrates the beauty within the works of those who were coerced into labor through racial oppression. It is displayed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a tablet being held aloft by 300 bronze sculptures representing the men and women of color – “both bond and free” – that built the University. The memorial works as an anti-monument with its size, placement, and use. The small stature compared to neighboring obelisks and its function as a table invoke feelings of excessive comfort for those who notice it. Suh uses the diminutive size to make meaning by drawing cold, glaring attention to the injustices of of these men and women as a result of their human condition.