In his paintings Young Min Moon depicts Jesa, a Confucian ritual for commemoration of the deceased, which was one of the earliest memories he holds while growing up in the military regime of South Korea in the 1970s and 80s. Despite the gender politics now associated with the ritual today due to its patriarchal nature, Moon insists on exploring the legacy. For him, the ritual holds multiple layers of meanings: an occasion of silence utterly severed from the violent era of his childhood, a means of remembering the deceased, and a tradition that may be discontinued in the age of globalization.
Moon's paintings are also a way of honoring women’s labor for the patriarchal tradition, and an invitation to the celebration of familial ties that are largely inaccessible for diasporic Koreans. In his solo exhibition at The Korea Society, Moon also complicates his relation to the legacy of Jesa by situating it in relation to Catholicism that impacted the Confucian tradition in Korea.
Moon, whose solo exhibition The Share for Those Who Remain is on view at The Korea Society Gallery September 15-December 9, 2022, talks about his career and work.
Artist Talk: Young Min Moon
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 | 5 PM (EDT)
Video release
@ The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor, NYC
Gallery hours: (M-F) 10 AM - 4:30 PM by appointment
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ABOUT THE ARTIST: 
Young Min Moon is an artist and critic whose work reflects his migration across cultures and his awareness of the hybrid nature of identities forged amid the complex historical and political relationships between Asia and North America. Moon has shown his art in many exhibitions in South Korea and North America, including Sansumunhwa, Art Space Pool, Kumho Museum of Art, Gyeonggi Museum of Art, Kukje Gallery, Smith College Museum of Art, and the Carpenter Center at Harvard University, among others. Moon published his essays on contemporary Korean art in a wide range of publications, including Contemporary Art in Asia: A Critical Reader (MIT), and a chapter in A Companion to Korean Art (Wiley). He serves on the editorial board for the online journal Trans Asia Photography. Moon is a professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst and a recipient of Guggenheim Fellowship and Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant.