Do Ho Suh

His father, Suh Se-Ok, was a famous artist who led a 1960s art movement to combine traditional ink paintings with new meanings and concepts from the abstract art movement that was happening in the West.[6] Suh grew up in Seoul and after failing to get the grades needed to become a marine biologists, he applied for art school. After receiving a master's degree in traditional Korean painting and mandatorily serving the South Korean military for approximately 2 years after graduating at Seoul National University,[7] he moved to the United States to continue his painting education in 1991.[3] Immigrating to the United States affected how Suh interpreted home and created an overarching theme in his works where he explores space and how we interact with it.[2] This can be seen in his piece, "Home Within Home Within Home Within Home Within Home" which is a silk replica of his childhood home,[8] as well as his piece "Fallen Star" that featured a traditional home from the East Coast crashing into the engineering building on the UC San Diego campus.[9] Moving to the US removed the association Suh had to his father, "I felt relieved when I went to the States, I felt much more freedom".[3] It allowed him to make his own work and not be compared to his father.

Suh's work has a central focus on architecture, space, and identity.[2] His early work blended into the gallery space and was barely discernible to the viewer as art. His most famous works are made of nylon or silk skillfully sewn into forms that represent spaces in Suh's life to scale. One of Suh's oldest works is entitled High School Uni-form (1997). This piece also followed his theme of identity since, more recently, these uni-forms have changed over time. Although this is an outfit that many boys shared at the time, they all have different sentiments when looking back at these uniforms. Although it remains unclear on what this piece really means, identity plays a major role in this breathtaking piece.[10] This Immigrating to the United States affected how Suh interpreted home and created an overarching theme in his works where he explores space and how we interact with it.[2] This can be seen in his piece, "Home Within Home Within Home Within Home Within Home"[8] which is a silk replica of his childhood home, as well as his piece "Fallen Star" that featured a traditional Korean home crashing into a Los Angeles building.[9] Suh also challenges the uses of varies materials, for instance, "Do Ho Suh: 348 West 22nd Street" is a work created with luminous swaths of translucent polyester, which features his own history of migration from Korea to New York, a replica of the ground-floor residence when he first arrived the United States. Moving to the US removed the association Suh had to his father, "I felt relieved when I went to the states, I felt much more freedom".[3]

Suh has had solo exhibitions at Storefront for Art and Architecture (2010), the Serpentine Gallery, London (2002),[11] Seattle Art Museum,[12] the Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, the Artsonje Center in Korea, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2013),[13] Bildmuseet, Umeå University, Sweden (2017 - 2018),[14] the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. (2018) [15] the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2019 - 2020),[16] the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum in Denmark (2018 - 2019),[17] the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, UK (2019),[18] and the Museum Voorlinden in Netherlands (2019).[19] He has also participated in group exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,[20] among others. Suh has participated in numerous biennials, including the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001.[21] In 2010, he was shown in the Liverpool Biennial,[22] the Venice Biennale Architecture,[23] and Media City Seoul Biennial,[24] and the 9th Gwangju Biennale in 2012.

Suh's work is found in major museum collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York;[25] Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Albright–Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles;[26] Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Seattle Asian Art Museum, Seattle, WA;[27] Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Tate Modern, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; the Towada Art Center and Gothenburg; Museum of World Culture.

Do Ho Suh, New York Apartment (2015).

Do Ho Suh, Bridging Home (2010) in Liverpool, England.

Do Ho Suh, Bridging Home (2010) in Liverpool, England.

Selected works include:

• Hub-2, Breakfast Corner, 260-7 (2018)
• Hub-1, Entrace, 260-7 (2018)
• New York City Apartment (2015)[28]
• Fallen Star (2012)[29]
• 348 West 22nd Street (2011-2015)
• Net-Work (2010)
• Karma (2010)
• Home within Home (2009-2011)
• Fallen Star 1/5 (2008-2011)
• Cause & Effect (2012)
• Paratrooper-II (2005)
• Paratrooper-V (2005)
• Unsung Founders (2005)
• Some/One (2005)
• Reflection (2004)
• Karma Juggler (2004)
• Staircase-IV (2004)
• Screen (2003)
• Doormat: Welcome Back (2003)
• The Perfect Home (2002)
• Public Figures (2001)
• Who Am We? (2000)
• Floor (1997-2000)
• High School Uni-form (1997)

• Ho-Am Prize in the Arts (2017)

• Lehmann Maupin Gallery
• Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century
• TateShots: Do Ho Suh - Staircase-III The artist talks about his installation piece. 25 March 2011.
• 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa
• Profile overview on Artsy