Do Ho Suh

Do Ho Suh was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1962. After earning his BFA and MFA 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 to continue his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design and Yale University. Best known for his intricate sculptures that defy conventional notions of scale and site-specificity, Suh draws attention to the ways viewers occupy and inhabit public space. In several of the artist’s floor sculptures, viewers are encouraged to walk on surfaces composed of thousands of miniature human figures.

In Some/One, the floor of the gallery is blanketed with polished military dog tags. Evocative of the way an individual soldier is part of a larger troop or military body, these dog tags swell to form a hollow, ghost-like suit of armor at the center of the room. Whether addressing the dynamic of personal space versus public space, or exploring the fine line between strength in numbers and homogeneity, Suh’s sculptures continually question the identity of the individual in today’s increasingly transnational, global society.

Do Ho Suh represented Korea at the 2001 Venice Biennale. A retrospective of the artist’s work was held jointly at Seattle Art Museum and Seattle Asian Art Museum in 2002. Major exhibitions of Suh’s work have also been held at Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris (2001); Serpentine Gallery, London (2002); and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri (2002–03).

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Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching Love in Times of Unprecedented Instability

  Life as an educator during the COVID-19 pandemic has been an emotional journey. I remember having a little sob when we found out we’d be closing for 2 weeks in March 2020, and then bursting into tears when we found out we wouldn’t be returning later that spring at all. I cried when I […]

Teaching with Contemporary Art

The Process is the Product

The camera in its simplest and most complex form operates like an eye. Light enters the pupil or the lens aperture and is projected upside down and backwards onto the retina, or the picture plane. The brain makes sense of these images by filling in gaps, focusing on selective areas, adjusting the color, and presenting […]

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Stuck at Home

During the long, odd, Zoom-filled first days of the pandemic’s arrival in Seattle, I thought about how the traditional art classroom is not always the most ideal place for making art, especially contemporary art. Students usually come to the art room and find traditional art-making tools and materials: paints, brushes, pencils, pens, paper, canvas, and […]

Conversation Starter

What details make a home?

Like all people, artists grapple with the definition and memory of home.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with Love and Loss

Art21 Educator, Ty Talbot, shares a playlist of films that explore notions of love and loss that he curated for his high school classroom.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

To Evoke Emotion

Art21 Educator Dennis Greenwell shares a classroom exercise to encourage students to embrace their emotional reactions to works of art, inspired by a visit to a Do Ho Suh installation.

Interview

“Seoul Home/L.A. Home”—Korea and Displacement

Do Ho Suh discusses the role of place in his work, and his 1999 installation piece Seoul Home/L.A. Home/New York Home/Baltimore Home/London Home/Seattle Home.

Interview

“Some/One” and the Korean Military

Do Ho Suh discusses his time in the Korean military, and how it informed his 2001 sculptural installation Some/One.


Galleries