Tuesday 22 July 2025
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki will unveil an installation by Korean artist Do Ho Suh (b.1962) this week.
Opening 26 July, North Wall (2005) is an eight-metre large-scale fabric sculpture that will appear to float in space, suspended from the ceiling in the heart of the Gallery’s building. The work is one of Suh’s most significant early pieces and arrives at a timely moment, coinciding with the artist’s major survey currently on view at Tate Modern in London.
A highly personal work about the meaning of home, North Wall replicates the wall of the artist’s father’s studio in Seoul, a building modelled after traditional Korean scholar’s houses. Rendered in intricate detail using Suh’s signature fabric construction techniques, North Wall captures the architecture of Suh’s childhood home while evoking the themes of longing, memory, and traces of displacement.
Auckland Art Gallery Senior Curator, Global Contemporary Art, Natasha Conland says, “Suh is globally renowned for his translucent fabric sculptures, often described as portable homes. His work captures architectural details from the various places he has lived and worked, inviting us to reflect on how we experience intimacy within our own domestic spaces.”
The sculpture’s brilliant green fabric draws on the traditional green used for the ceilings of a scholar’s house, a colour symbolising the universe and its endless possibilities. North Wall was acquired for the Gallery’s collection in 2024 with support from the Auckland Contemporary Art Trust. Collecting global contemporary art enables the Gallery to bring international perspectives into Aotearoa and enrich its collection with diverse voices.
The Gallery’s summer free family-friendly interactive experience, Artland is a collaborative hands-on clay installation designed by Do Ho Suh with his young daughters. Opening 20 September, Artland is an evolving sculptural environment created from children’s modelling clay. The installation features imaginative creatures and fantastical landscapes including Noodlegrass, Blobbugs, Spocky Trees and Slimes, and invites visitors of all ages to sculpt their own creations. The project is supported by the Joyce Fisher Charitable Trust.
On Saturday 11 October, the Gallery presents its inaugural Kids & Whānau Festival, a free and fun day for all ages with creativity, art and music. Experience Artland first-hand, get hands-on with exhibition-inspired crafts in Kids & Whānau Create, and enjoy dance and movement workshops with Atamira Dance Company. The day also features performances by emerging musicians from Auckland Philharmonia, beloved children’s entertainer Suzy Cato ONZM and award-winning Christchurch-based sister duo Loopy Tunes.
Key details:
Do Ho Suh: North Wall
26 July 2025 – 1 March 2026
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
Artland
20 September 2025 – 19 July 2026
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
Free entry | Bookings required
30-minute sessions start every half hour, 10.30am–4pm daily
Kids & Whānau Festival 2025: Imaginary Worlds
11 October 2025, 10am–3pm
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
About the artist
Do Ho Suh (b. 1962, Seoul, Korea; lives and works in London, United Kingdom) works across various media, creating drawings, film, and sculptural works that confront questions of home, physical space, displacement, memory, individuality, and collectivity. Suh is best known for his fabric sculptures that reconstruct to scale his former homes in Korea, Rhode Island, Berlin, London, and New York. Suh is interested in the malleability of space in both its physical and metaphorical forms, and examines how the body relates to, inhabits, and interacts with that space. He is particularly interested in domestic space and the way the concept of home can be articulated through architecture that has a specific location, form, and history. For Suh, the spaces we inhabit also contain psychological energy, and in his work he makes visible those markers of memories, personal experiences, and a sense of security, regardless of geographic location.