Oddooki

This essay originally appeared in New Zealand Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2018).

Seung Yul Oh’s works are often a coming together of ideas, experiences, cultures and materials. Playful yet thoughtful, his diverse artistic practice is never restricted by medium, surface or space; instead it revels in these elements, pushes at them and blurs their boundaries.

Oddooki was produced for the Te Papa sculpture terrace programme in 2008, and while originally designed for a blustery spot on the museum’s roof, it can adapt to indoor or outdoor environments alike. The five strange brightly coloured fibreglass and resin bird-egg figures, each approximately a metre high, are finished in high-gloss automative paint, their shiny surfaces designed to reflect both their surroundings and the viewers who look at them. Each is secured to the floor with a spring so they wobble and sway as they are buffeted or nudged by the wind or a curious hand. As they move, a bell inside them chimes. Oh describes them as ‘performance sculptures’ that ‘might be read as players in an orchestra, each generating their own unique tones, or as a dance ensemble of quirky egg-like figures choreographed by the wind’.1

The egg shapes he uses here recall a Korean childhood toy that wobbles when pushed and rights itself. Translated into English lettering, the name of the toy is Oddooki. But there is more at play in this work than a personal reference to a child’s toy — the alien yet familiar figures create a tension between abstraction and representation, energy and stasis. There is a sense of harnessing and embracing the surroundings, the materials, the push that makes them chime.

Through the figures, Oh plays with the architecture of the space and the viewer’s physical relationship to the environment in which they encounter them. The forms are organic, moving, yet bolted to the floor, glossy and manufactured. The egg shape brings to mind procreation, protection and survival; by combining it with the chicken, the egg’s developed form, perhaps Oh is playfully asking us to consider that very old question of which came first.

Lizzie Baikie

 

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Oddooki was commissioned as a site specific installation for Te Papa's Sculpture Terrace programme (2005-2010). Situated on level 6 of the building the outdoor courtyard and balcony that were used for the programme have views across the city and sea. Oh proposed to 'take advantage of Wellington’s natural elements by creating a work that will be activated by the wind and animated by other natural elements such as the play of summer light on the high-sheen surface of the works.'

The work consists of five egg-shaped bird figures, approximately a metre high. Each figure is attached to a base that allows it to sway, and as it moves an internal bell chimes.

In a statement about the work, Oh refers to the figures that make up Oddooki as 'performance sculptures' that ‘might be read as players in an orchestra, each generating their own unique tones, or as a dance ensemble of quirky egg-like figures choreographed by the wind.’