Early life and career

He was born in Seoul, Korea in 1962. After earning his Bachelor of Fine Arts

Bachelor of Fine Arts

In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...

 and Master of Fine Arts

Master of Fine Arts

A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...

 in Oriental Painting from Seoul National University

Seoul National University

Seoul National University , colloquially known in Korean as Seoul-dae , is a national research university in Seoul, Korea, ranked 24th in the world in publications in an analysis of data from the Science Citation Index, 7th in Asia and 42nd in the world by the 2011 QS World University Rankings...

, and fulfilling his term of mandatory service in the South Korean military

Conscription in South Korea

Conscription, or mandatory military service or compulsory national service, is legislated in South Korea, with military service stated as one of the Four Constitutional Duties for all citizens...

, Suh relocated to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 to continue his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design is a fine arts and design college located in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1877. Located at the base of College Hill, the RISD campus is contiguous with the Brown University campus. The two institutions share social, academic, and community resources and...

 and Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

. Do Ho 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, Do Ho Suh constructs site-specific installations that question the boundaries of identity. His work explores the relation between individuality, collectivity, and anonymity.

Exhibitions

He has had solo exhibitions at Storefront for Art and Architecture

Storefront for Art and Architecture

' is a contemporary art and architecture institution founded in 1982 in New York City.-Background:Founded in 1982 by Kyong Park, Storefront for Art and Architecture is a nonprofit organization in New York City committed to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art and design...

 (2010), the Serpentine Gallery, London (2002), Seattle Art Museum

Seattle Art Museum

The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It maintains three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened on...

, the Whitney Museum of American Art

Whitney Museum of American Art

The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...

 at Philip Morris, and the Artsonje Center

Artsonje Center

Artsonje Center is a private art museum in Seoul, South Korea founded in 1998. The museum aims to provide current and experimental contemporary art to the art world and public with its international exhibitions and educational programs.-See also:...

 in Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

. He has also participated in group exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, among others. Suh has participated in many biennials including the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001. In 2010 he was shown in the Liverpool Biennial, the Venice Biennale Architecture, and Media City Seoul Biennial. The artist's work is represented in a number of major museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum with three locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near Walt Disney Concert Hall...

. Do Ho Suh lives and works in New York City and Seoul, Korea.

External links

• 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.