Do Ho Suh

Inspired by his peripatetic life, Do Ho Suh has long ruminated on the idea of home as both a physical structure and a lived experience, the boundaries of identity and the connection between the individual and the group across global cultures.

In work for which he is widely celebrated, the artist meticulously constructs proportionally exact replicas of dwelling places, architectural features, or household appliances from stitched planes of translucent, coloured polyester fabric. Reflections of places the artist has inhabited, such as his childhood home or Western apartments, these delicately precise, weightless impressions seem to exist between imagination and reality. Suh has spoken of the distinctive openness to the environment of Korean homes; more than repositories of personal memory or nostalgic projections, his works respond to the indistinct boundaries between psychic interior and objective exterior, which make of home an ongoing lived function rather than a physical structure.

Transitory, connecting spaces – corridors, staircases, bridges, gateways – often feature in the artist's drawings, sculptural installations and public works: rather than borders, Suh is fascinated with the linking spaces through which the body travels between cultures, the transitional moments in his own life and the passages – physical or philosophical – that transport individuals through various stages of their lives.

About the Artist

Born in 1962 in South Korea, Do Ho Suh received a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA in sculpture from Yale University. He currently lives and works in London.

Suh was named the Wall Street Journal Magazine’s 2013 Innovator of the Year in Art and was awarded the 2017 Ho-Am Prize, which is regarded as Korea’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize. He represented Korea at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001.

The artist has staged numerous international solo exhibitions and site-specific projects at institutional venues including Tate Modern, London, UK (2025); Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, Texas, USA (2024); 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, UK (2021); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, USA (2019); Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK (2019); Museum Voorlinden, The Netherlands (2019); ARoS, Aarhus, Denmark (2018); The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, USA (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, USA (2018); Bildmuseet, Sweden (2018); Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison,USA (2017);Contemporary Arts Centre, Cincinnati (2016); MOCA Cleveland (2015–16), travelling to MCA San Diego (2016); The Contemporary Austin, Texas (2014); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea (2013); 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2012 - 2013 and 2005); Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan (2012); University of San Diego, California (2012); Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea (2012); Seattle Art Museum, Washington (2011 and 2003) and Tate Modern, London (2011). The artist has participated in the Singapore Biennale (2016), 8th Gwangju Biennale (2012), 12th Venice Architecture Biennale (2010), and 6th Liverpool Biennial (2010). The first survey exhibition of Do Ho Suh's work in Europe was presented at the Serpentine Gallery, London in 2002.

Suh's work is included in numerous museum collections worldwide including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate, London; Leeum, Seoul; Artsonje Center, Seoul; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; and 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, among many others.

A film by Do Ho Suh was commissioned by the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) as part of its presentation Robin Hood Gardens: A Ruin in Reverse at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition, in collaboration with La Biennale di Venezia, 2018. The film was featured in Chicago Architecture Biennial, Chicago, USA (19 September 2019–5 January 2020).