ArtSonje Performance: Min Oh

Jinan Kang, Yeonwha Kong, Minjung Kim, Sungwan Kim, Kitae Bae, Yeasul Shin, Jinyoung Shin, Sulki & Min, Woosup Sim, Min Oh, Sinsil Lee, Yanghee Lee, Youngwoo Lee, Taehun Lee, Taesoon Jang, Kwangjun Jung, Joseph Fungsang, June Moon Kyung Hahn, Yunkyung Hur, Chosun Hong,

Jinan Kang, Yeonwha Kong, Minjung Kim, Sungwan Kim, Kitae Bae, Yeasul Shin, Jinyoung Shin, Sulki & Min, Woosup Sim, Min Oh, Sinsil Lee, Yanghee Lee, Youngwoo Lee, Taehun Lee, Taesoon Jang, Kwangjun Jung, Joseph Fungsang, June Moon Kyung Hahn, Yunkyung Hur, Chosun Hong, is conceived as a question regarding the composer Julia Wolfe’s musical work Lick. Typically in western music, the musical theme introduced at the beginning of a piece offers critical clues as to the direction in which the music will unfold. If one does not perceive the theme, it is unlikely that one will be able to read the direction of the music, and one’s interest as a listener will hardly remain. Yet Lick seemingly reserves the presentation of a theme until the end, obscuring both its point of departure and its destination while frenetically racing around in a loop in between these two. From here, Min Oh observed a tension, velocity, and direction that resists slowing, and for a period spanning over a year she has intently traced the source of this drive within the music.

Improvisation drawn in advance
Subject displayed like context
Totality placed in the part
Physicality embodied by extreme rationality
The body highlighted by the body’s insensibility
Form discovered through invisibility
Impulse derived from obscurity
Velocity promoted by ignorance
Motion caused by motionlessness
Or stillness resulting from movement

Jinan Kang, Yeonwha Kong, Minjung Kim, Sungwan Kim, Kitae Bae, Yeasul Shin, Jinyoung Shin, Sulki & Min, Woosup Sim, Min Oh, Sinsil Lee, Yanghee Lee, Youngwoo Lee, Taehun Lee, Kwangjun Jung, Joseph Fungsang, June Moon Kyung Hahn, Yunkyung Hur, Chosun Hong, abstracts these paradoxical clues from Lick while investigating the composer’s thoughts that penetrate through the music’s ideas, materials, structure, and compositional principles; observing the physical challenges that the performers confront; and identifying the senses that the listeners encounter. Finally, it attempts to expand these traces into universal questions that are frequently raised in the process of making, performing, and reading performances.

About the Artist
Min Oh is a visual artist based in Amsterdam and Seoul. Oh makes compositions of the abstract and the concrete in film and performance where the material mainly contains elements of performance. The logic of Oh’s compositions references the musical language that she naturally acquired in her youth while undergoing professional training to become a pianist. Her deep interest in performance is grounded in her obsession with the sense of anxiety. She observes the behavior that human beings engage in to control irreversible, immediate, and reciprocal situations, which includes planning, decision-making, training, and playing. She earned bachelor’s degrees in piano performance (1998) and graphic design (2000) at Seoul National University, and earned her MFA (2008) at Yale University, New Haven. Her work has been exhibited at Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Museum De Domijnen, Daegu Art Museum, Doosan Gallery, Arko Art Center, Kukje Gallery, Nam June Paik Art Center, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Nederlandsche Bank Gallery, and Kunsthalle Erfurt.