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’s work 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 a sea of 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, Do-Ho 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 the Seattle Art Museum
and the Seattle Asian Art Museum in 2002. Major exhibitions of Suh’s
work have also been held at the Whitney Museum of American Art at
Philip Morris (2001), the Serpentine Gallery, London (2002), and
the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO (2002-03).
For additional biographic & bibliographic information:
Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York
Do-Ho Suh on the Art21 blog |
