Do Ho Suh (b. 1962, Seoul, Korea; lives and works in London, United Kingdom) works across various media, creating drawings, film, and sculptural works that confront questions of home, physical space, displacement, memory, individuality, and collectivity. Suh is best known for his fabric sculptures that reconstruct to scale his former homes in Korea, Rhode Island, Berlin, London, and New York. Suh is interested in the malleability of space in both its physical and metaphorical forms, and examines how the body relates to, inhabits, and interacts with that space. He is particularly interested in domestic space and the way the concept of home can be articulated through architecture that has a specific location, form, and history. For Suh, the spaces we inhabit also contain psychological energy, and in his work he makes visible those markers of memories, personal experiences, and a sense of security, regardless of geographic location.
Suh received a B.F.A. in painting from Rhode Island School of Design in 1994 and an M.F.A. in sculpture from Yale University in 1997. Forthcoming solo exhibitions of his work will be presented by the Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, Texas, United States (2024); and Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom (2025). Solo exhibitions of his work have recently been organized at Art Sonje Center, Seoul, South Korea (2024); the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland (2024); Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia (2022); Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea (2022); Bloomberg SPACE, London, United Kingdom (2021); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (2019); Victoria & Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom (2019); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, the Netherlands (2018); ARoS, Aarhus, Denmark (2018); The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (2018); Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN (2018); Towada Art Center, Towada, Japan (2018); Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D,C. (2018); Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, CA (2018); Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden (2017); Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI (2017); NC-arte, Bogotá, Colombia (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA (2016); Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH (2016); Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Cleveland, OH (2015); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2015); Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol, United Kingdom (2015); The Contemporary Austin, Austin, TX (2014); National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea (2013); 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2012-2013); Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan (2012); Stuart Collection, University of San Diego, San Diego, CA (2012); Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea (2012); and Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom (2011). Select group exhibitions featuring his work include Lightness of Being, K11 Foundation, Shanghai, China (2021); When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration Through Contemporary Art, Iris and Gerald B. Cantor Center for the Visual Arts at Stanford University, Stanford, CA (2021), Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN (2020), Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Boston, MA (2019); Waking Dream, Ruby City, San Antonio, TX (2019); Crossing Lines, Constructing Home: Displacement and Belonging in Contemporary Art, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA (2019); Altering Home, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art & Culture City of East Asia, Kanazawa, Japan (2018); Shelter in the Storm, A Look at the Exile in the MUSAC Collection, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y Léon, León, Spain (2018); Freespace, Japan Pavilion, 16th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice, Italy (2018); Art of the Senses, Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY (2017); No Place Like Home, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2017); Apparitions: Frottages and Rubbings from 1860 to Now, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, the Menil Collection, Houston, TX (2015); Beyond and Between, Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2014); Shades of Time: An Exhibition from the Archive of Korean American Artists, Part Two 1989 - 2001, Queens Museum, New York, NY (2014); Homebodies, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (2013); Dislocation, Daegu Art Museum, Daegu, South Korea (2012); and Peppermint Candy: Contemporary Korean Art, The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, South Korea (2009). Suh has participated in multiple biennial exhibitions, including the Chicago Architecture Biennial (2019); Singapore Biennial (2016); the 9th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2012); the 6th Liverpool Biennial, United Kingdom (2010); the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice, Italy (2010); the 8th International Istanbul Biennial (2003); the 13th Biennial of Sydney (2002); and represented Korea at the 49th Venice Biennale (2001).
Suh’s work is in numerous international public and private collections, including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA; Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario, Canada; Art Sonje Center, Seoul, South Korea; Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, NC; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; Bard College Museum, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ; Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, MI; Colgate University, Hamilton, NY; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Daegu Museum of Art, Daegu, South Korea; Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, NC; The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA; FENIX Museum of Migration, Rotterdam, Netherlands; Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY; Freer Gallery of Art & Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Gwangju Biennale Foundation, Gwangju, South Korea; The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Honolulu Academy of Art, Honolulu, HI; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea; Linda Pace Foundation, San Antonio, TX; Lisser Art Museum, Lisse, Netherlands; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, León, Spain; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, Netherlands; Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg, Sweden; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, South Korea; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; New York Public Library, New York, NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI; Richmond Center for Visual Arts, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI; Samuso: Space for Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea; San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; St. Louis Art Center, St. Louis, MO; The Stuart Collection, University of San Diego, San Diego, CA; Tate, London, United Kingdom; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria; Towada Art Center, Towada, Japan; University Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC; Vera List Center for Art and Politics, The New School, New York, NY; Victoria &
Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom; Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA; Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; YUZ Foundation, Jakarta, Indonesia; and the Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
In 2013, Do Ho Suh was named Wall Street Journal Magazine's Innovator of the Year in Art.