SEUNG YUL OH
Born in Korea, Seung Yul moved to New Zealand to study at the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts, where he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts. He is now permanently based in New Zealand and continues to show internationally.
SEUNG YUL OH: MOAMOA
Book - June 2014
Seung Yul Oh: MOAMOA is the first major publication on this highly acclaimed Korean New Zealand contemporary artist.
This sumptuous hardcover book, released in association with a recent decade-long survey by the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and City Gallery Wellington, includes essays by Aaron Kreisler and Aaron Lister, an interview with Seung Yul Oh by Sunjung Kim, comprehensive artist biography and a sixty page colour plate section.
This is the first major survey publication of the Korean-New Zealand artist Seung Yul Oh. After spending his formative years in South Korea (b. 1981, Seoul), Oh has now spent as much time in New Zealand, where he has come to dedicate his time to studying, developing his practice and becoming an artist of significant repute. Although he is still relatively young Oh has already produced a considerable body of work and received a level of critical acclaim, which makes this exhibition both timely and important.
MOAMOA, Korean for ‘gather gather’ or ‘gather together’, is a book strongly shaped by the nature of Oh’s practice, especially its persistent sense of rejuvenation in which nothing is allowed to simply sit still or be quiet. While the focus of this survey is largely based around Oh’s sculptural work of the last decade, his interest in painting, performance and video are present.
From its inception, this book has been an opportunity to look back at and through the rich body of the artist’s work and also covers a new set of works. Much of the energy of MOAMOA comes from the new meanings and possibilities made possible by gathering everything together for the first time, in what is the largest amassing of Oh’s work in a single publication.