Three artists with works on view at SAM use clothing as a metaphor for loss and tragedy in somber times: Do-Ho Suh, Anselm Kiefer and Joseph Beuys. The work of contemporary artist Do-Ho Suh follows in the tradition of German post-war artists like Kiefer and Beuys, whose works often deal with the legacy of Nazism. All three artists conjure up complex and ambiguous narratives that allow multiple interpretations.

In Die Welle, 1990, Anselm Kiefer uses children's clothing to imagine a major catastrophe based on the powerful emotional punch of lost innocence or young lives cut short. These articles of clothing, which include an older-woman's dress (the mother?), are strewn about and hang amid a painterly landscape of cracked earth and mangled metal.

Joseph Beuys' Felt Suit represents an Everyman, using just this closet remnant to stand in for a life lived. Like Do-Ho Suh, Beuys uses materials that are charged with personal symbolism. His suit is made from the thick felt of army blankets, a material that provides warmth and comfort amid conditions that are likely to be unfriendly. 

In Some/One, Do-Ho Suh uses a disembodied robe to conjure up a similarly transcendental being, built from the existence, or maybe the loss, of thousands of men, symbolized by the dog tags. The viewer is able to project him- or herself into the mirrored interior of this garment, which can be seen to be rising from the floor or melting into it. 

"... collecting these materials and also from my interaction with the army and the navy surplus store owner who happened to be an old Korean guy in Cranston, Rhode Island … he allowed me to use this special typewriter for the dog tags.... I think, for almost two weeks I typed dog tags. And I had around thirty thousand dog tags there. And we had a conversation, you know, we talked about things going on back in Korea."

—Do-Ho Suh, in an interview with Art21

The dog tags used in Some/One are each unique, and they each represent an individual. Altogether, however, they also represent a group, a collective entity. They might refer to Korea's aspirations for collective unity despite the historic divide between North and South Korea. The artist relies on the notion that the dog tag is not only an identification tool but a symbol of belonging to a group; that is, the military, in which an individual's interests are forfeited in favor of the entire division.

The arrangement of overlapping dog tags creates an ultra shiny and reflective surface that captures viewers' faces on the armor. This reflection begs us to question whose identity we are looking at. The artist's, the fallen soldiers' or our own? In an interview with Art21, Suh remarked that he intends "people to make multiple associations to the work. I really like it when that happens. I don't know whether it's simply coincidence or not, but I think I carefully manage to keep the work open so it could be read in different ways."

Some/Oneis hollow inside so that the core of the sculpture is laid bare and open for visitors to view. The hollowness makes the work appear fragile and ephemeral, which is disconcerting because we expect it to be sturdy and resilient. This fragility contrasts with the wide and imposing overall outline of the armor. However, much like any other military wear, the work is left hollow because it needs to be "filled" by an individual in order to serve its purpose. Without a human figure to fill it, the armor is useless, an object of contemplation instead of an instrument of protection.