The year he turned 28, he took part in the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s show for emerging artists, now called Young Korean Artists. In 1991, after finishing bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Oriental painting at Seoul National University, he went to the U.S. and entered the painting program at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 1992, early in his studies and during the Los Angeles riots, he collected military dog tags and made Metal Jacket.
In 1994, he made Room 516 by sewing muslin into a full-size copy of the room he lived in while studying. It is the earliest of his fabric house works. In 1998, he won the Kapa Art Prize and showed Seoul Home/L.A. Home for the first time at his solo show at the Korean Cultural Center in Los Angeles.
The breakthrough yearThe year he turned 39, he represented Korea in the Korean Pavilion at the 49th Venice Biennale and showed Some/One, a dress made of military dog tags, and his name became known on the international stage. He went on to show work at MoMA and Tate Modern, among others.
In 2003, he held his first solo show in Korea at Artsonje Center in Seoul and won the Hermès Korea Missulsang the same year. In 2004, he won the 19th Sun Art Prize.
In 2006, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) bought Gate. In 2009, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston bought a work, and he began early experiments with thread drawing at the STPI residency in Singapore. In 2010, after working in New York, he moved his base to London.
In 2012, he held the solo show Home within Home at Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, the first solo show by a living artist from Korea since the museum opened in 2004. The same year he took part in the Deoksugung Project and installed a work in Hamnyeongjeon hall. In 2013, he won the Wall Street Journal Innovator of the Year Award, and in November he showed Home within Home in the Seoul Box of MMCA Seoul, which had just opened.
In 2017, he won the Ho-Am Prize in the Arts at its 27th award ceremony. In 2018, MMCA Cheongju opened and put his work Floor on view in its open storage on the first floor. In 2019, a special screening was held of Hamnyeongjeon: The Emperor’s Bedroom, a documentary on the making of the Hamnyeongjeon project, and 348 West 22nd Street, donated to LACMA, went on view.
In 2022, he held a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney. In August 2023, a small work on the theme of the home was offered at a K Auction sale. In 2024, he held the solo show Speculations at Artsonje Center, 21 years after his first solo show there in 2003.
In 2025, he held the solo show Walk the House at Tate Modern in London. In 2026, the year he turned 64, he held a large solo show of about 500 works at MMCA Seoul and showed new thread drawings at the STPI booth at Frieze Seoul.
Do Ho Suh (born 1962) began showing work in 1990, the year he turned 28, when he took part in the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s show for emerging artists, and became known on the international stage in 2001, the year he turned 39, when he represented Korea at the Venice Biennale. On Aug 27, 2026, the year he turned 64, he opened a large solo show at MMCA Seoul.
Ages are by calendar year (the year minus the birth year), birthdays aside.