Do Ho Suh Suh was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1962. After earning his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts in Oriental Painting from Seoul National University, and fulfilling his term of mandatory service in the South Korean military, Suh relocated to the United States and received a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA in sculpture from Yale University.
Suh leads an itinerant life, hopping from his family home in Seoul (where his father is a major influence in Korean traditional painting) to his working life in New York. Migration, both spatial and psychological, has been one of Suh’s themes,manifested through biographical narrative and emotionally inflected architecture.
Best known for his intricate sculptures that defy conventional notions of scale and site-specificity, Suh’s work draws attention to the ways viewers occupy and inhabit public space. Interested in the malleability of space in both its physical and metaphorical manifestations, Suh constructs site-specific installations that question the boundaries of identity.
“I am interested in space that moves along with me, or that I move with me; the space I try to move with me because I want to, because it is important to me; or the space I have to move with me because I am forced to; or the space that just tags along with me without my being conscious of it–the space that I create for myself and the space that is imposed on me; the space in/through which I feel good, protected, comfortable, liberated, and the space that is imposed on me and therefore oppresses, confines, and alienates me. I explore the personal space as the combination of tension between these two force fields, and how the boundaries of the personal space are drawn.”
( Do-Ho Suh, 1997 )
His work explores the relation between individuality, collectivity, and anonymity.
In 2001, Suh represented Korea at the Venice Biennale and subsequently participated in the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale, the 2010 Liverpool Biennial, and the 2012 Gwangju Biennial. Recent solo exhibitions include Wielandstr.18, 12159, DAAD Galerie, Germany (2011); Asian Art and Do Ho Suh, Seattle Art Museum, Washington (2011); Home Within Home, Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, Korea (2012); Blueprint, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan (2012); In Between, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan (2012); Perfect Home, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2012). The artist’s work is represented in numerous museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate Modern,London; Artsonje Center, Korea; and Mori Art Museum, Japan.
The artist lives and works in New York, London, and Seoul.