Do Ho Suh

In this Korean name, the family name is Suh.
Do Ho Suh
Eitaro Ogawa (left) working with sculptor Do Ho Suh (right).
Born1962
Seoul, South Korea
NationalitySouth Korean
EducationSeoul National University
Rhode Island School of Design
Yale University
Known forSculpture, Installation art
Korean name
Hangul
서도호
Hanja
徐道濩[1]
Revised RomanizationSeo Doho
McCune–ReischauerSŏ Toho

Do Ho Suh (Korean: 서도호; Hanja: 徐道濩; born 1962) is a South Korean artist who works primarily in sculpture, installation, and drawing. Suh is well known for re-creating architectural structures and objects using fabric in what the artist describes as an "act of memorialization."[2] After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts from Seoul National University in Korean painting, Suh began experimenting with sculpture and installation while studying at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from RISD in 1994, and went on to Yale where he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture in 1997. He practiced for over a decade in New York before moving to London in 2010. Suh regularly shows his work around the world, including Venice where he represented Korea at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001. In 2017, Suh was the recipient of the Ho-Am Prize in the Arts. Suh currently lives and works in London.

Suh's work focuses on the different ways architecture mediates the experience of space. Architecture has been a key reference for the artist since the mid-1990s—even for pieces like Floor (1997–2000) that do not resemble buildings. As a result, Suh pays particular attention to the site-specificity of the work, and sensorial experience of the viewer engaging with his pieces while moving in the exhibition space. A number of his sculptures produced in the past few decades consider the possibilities for sculpture to become architecture, and vice-versa.[3]: 147  His blurring of the line between sculpture and architecture often renders architectural structures portable through material change, as exemplified by one of his most famous works Seoul Home...(1999), for which he recreated his childhood home using polyester and silk. Suh's use of fabric and paper functioning like a "second skin" make it possible for his pieces to be folded up and transported.[4]: 29  His material choices of rice paper, and fabric commonly found in hanbok also refer to traditional Korean art and architecture.

  1. ^ "LA미술관, 서도호 작품 매입 전시", Chosun Ilbo, 2006-05-03, archived from the original on 2013-01-19, retrieved 2012-06-15
  2. ^ Do Ho Suh, quoted in Lucy Ives, "Do Ho Suh's Translucent Architectures," Frieze 229 (September 21, 2022), https://www.frieze.com/article/do-ho-suh-translucent-architectures.
  3. ^ Miwon Kwon, "Do Ho Suh," in Psycho Buildings: Artists Take on Architecture, exh. cat. (London: Hayward Publishing, 2008), 146-148.
  4. ^ Sarah Suzuki, "Essay," in Do Ho Suh, exh. cat. (Wassenaar: Voorlinden, 2019), 27-31.