Seung Yul Oh: Joyride
5 November, 2013 - 12 January, 2014
AV Gallery
Seung Yul Oh, The Ability to Blow Themselves Up (2013), Video
Joyride features two audio visual works by Seung Yul Oh. These are The Ability to Blow Themselves Up (2013) and Joyride (2012).
The Ability to Blow Themselves Up is an ongoing series of works originally begun by Seung Yul Oh in 2003, which document people in different stages of the process of blowing a balloon up until it bursts. The latest works in the series have been specially commissioned for exhibition at the Pah Homestead and for acquisition into the Arts Trust Collection.
To make this new series of works Seung Yul co-opted visitors to the Pah Homestead as willing participants, asking them to allow themselves to be filmed while performing the unpredictable and scary act of blowing up a balloon until it literally exploded in their faces. Needless to say this is quite a leap of faith for the participants, resulting in some psychologically revealing and often hilarious images. The participants’ faces express effort, anticipation and anxiety as they inflate the balloon to the point of explosion, followed by the dramatic release of tension in the moments after the balloon bursts, often accompanied by bursts of relieved laughter from participants and observers.
Seung Yul Oh, The Ability to Blow Themselves Up (2013), Video
The sound of an exploding balloon matches the sound of an exploding bomb–another quasi-natural human invention–though the bomb’s horrific impact on the world invokes the possibility of extinction rather than evolution. The ability of people to blow themselves up is mixed with amusement and terror. We understand we are able, but we wonder why we would.
-Seung Yul Oh 2013
About the Artist:
Seung Yul Oh was born in Korea in 1981. He trained at Auckland University’s Elam School of Fine Arts, graduating BFA in 2003 and MFA in 2005. Also in 2005 he won the National Contemporary Art Award presented by the Waikato Museum of Art and History, setting him on a path to becoming one of New Zealand’s most prolific and recognized younger artists, with a long list of exhibitions and commissioned works accomplished to date. In 2011 Seung Yul was awarded the prestigious Harriet Friedlander Residency, enabling him to spend a year in New York City developing new work. More recently he has participated in the 2013 SeMA Nanji Residency programme of the Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea.