Editor’s Observe: This story is a part of Newsmakers, an ARTnews sequence the place we interview the movers and shakers who’re making change within the artwork world.
Welcome to the resistorhood.
That’s the premise of Younger Joon Kwak’s present solo exhibition, “RESISTERHOOD,” on the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York. Consisting of labor remodeled the previous 10 years, together with new commissions, the present begins exterior the LLM with a sequence of neon works displayed within the museum’s window areas. An elegantly drawn hand in crimson goes from two fingers raised to a fist. A blue hand goes from an upright cease movement to a limp wrist. Subsequent to those is a scrawled textual content work that shows varied configurations of the phrase “resisterhood,” like “resist” and “sisterhood.”
On view inside are a sequence of dazzling bejeweled sculptures that glimmer and replicate and refract the sunshine. There’s an on the spot, recognizable magnificence and glamour to those items. On the inverse, Kwak has embedded casts of elements of their physique. One reveals the face of a pensive Kwak, maybe misplaced in thought. Elsewhere are physique prints and movies by which we see completely different expressions of Kwak’s queer trans physique. In a second the place trans rights are being rolled again throughout the nation, after a decade of virtually hypervisibility, “RESISTERHOOD” is an certainly an act of resistance and a strong, shifting show of artwork that’s each formally and politically adept.
To study extra concerning the exhibition, ARTnews spoke to the Los Angeles–based mostly artist through Zoom.
This dialog has been edited and condensed for readability and concision.
ARTnews: How did you method the making of your solo present on the Leslie Lohman Museum?
Younger Joon Kwak: After [head curator] Stamatina Gregory and [executive director] Alyssa Nitchun supplied me the present, I began considering by the legacy of the establishment when it comes to queer, LGBTQ+ historical past and artwork historical past. They’re making a queer artwork historical past, in a means, as a result of it’s the world’s solely LGBTQIA+ museum devoted to not solely displaying artwork by queer artists, however accumulating it. They’ve an intensive archive. That assortment, what they present, what they maintain on to, and what’s of their archive means one thing for queer historical past, for queer tradition, for our tradition. The invitation felt actually significant. However the legacy of the museum and its historical past is one in every of a historically extra cis white male area. And alternatively, the museum is now run by these badass queer girls who’re dedicated to shifting issues round within the museum, making it extra open, expansive, and taking dangers in displaying queer, trans, and POC artists and giving them solo exhibitions. It’s a small establishment that has been so supportive and the quantity of labor and love that they put into their work there—I simply needed to do proper by that. I noticed that as a possibility to make one thing that will be significant for our neighborhood.
Within the exhibition you’re displaying these bejeweled sculptures that behind them conceal casts of your face. Are you able to discuss the way you developed this physique of labor, which you additionally confirmed within the 2023 Made in L.A. biennal?
I name them my “chameleon” physique of labor. It is sort of a persevering with physique of labor, too. I used to be considering quite a bit about camouflage and the methods for queer and trans survival in addition to survival for people from different marginalized communities, and the way masking, camouflage, and even code-switching play into that. I did some analysis on chameleons and discovered the way in which by which they alter the colour of their pores and skin and camouflage inside their atmosphere is every pores and skin cell has little nanocrystals referred to as iridophores. So these iridescent nanocrystals can replicate any wavelength of sunshine and coloration of their atmosphere. And, opposite to some ideas about camouflage simply being a way of hiding, it’s just a little bit queer—it’s once they get excited, like when a male sees one other male, that their pores and skin stretches, exposing their pores and skin and these iridophores to any coloration within the spectrum of their atmosphere.
Making these works for the Made in L.A. biennial on the Hammer Museum, I knew a broader public would have interaction with my work in a means that perhaps it hasn’t previously. I believed quite a bit about how I needed people who find themselves not queer, people who find themselves not trans, perhaps even individuals who would see my physique or different trans our bodies on the road and have an impulse to show away—not simply reacting with anger or hate however that straightforward impulse to show away from trans points even when that anyone would possibly suppose they’re liberal and tolerant—I considered how these viewers would encounter these items. The items are bejeweled to attract them nearer, to seduce them nearly. The abstracted, camouflage-like patterns will not be instantly recognizable as a option to invite viewers to interact with it and have an prolonged, delayed second of recognizing what it’s, shifting round it, and having this expertise of participating with these our bodies that’s extra energetic, extended, and involving a way of discovery. And once they flip the nook, they’ll have this second of realization that they’ve had this intimate expertise with a trans physique, an embodied expertise of what it means to exist and navigate the world as a trans physique, in a means.
A sculpture and portray pair that Kwak created for Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Residing.
Picture Paul Salveson/ Courtesy the artist and Commonwealth and Council.
But in addition, one of many solid sculptures in that exhibition is of a cis girls’s nine-month pregnant stomach as a result of I needed to carry an surprising physique into this dialog of transness, drawing this connection to the truth that all of our our bodies are transitioning in a technique or one other. Occupied with this nine-month pregnant lady as a transitioning physique, one that each one of us might relate to. I used to be serious about it as this chance to attach with individuals who I usually wouldn’t have the chance to attach with in my on a regular basis encounters, and perhaps who wouldn’t need to join with me—perhaps I wouldn’t need to join with them initially both. However that’s the ability of artwork, too, that area to create these connections throughout boundaries of distinction in surprising methods. It’s a proxy for my physique and the physique of anyone else, and having the ability to join otherwise. The titles of every of those sculptures begin with To refuse wanting away from our transitioning our bodies, and the work [that are also part of this body of work] begin with To see your self mirrored in our chameleonic transformations. These sculptures had been actually about upsetting a distinct type of intimate encounter and expertise of our our bodies with transness.
The Leslie-Lohman present additionally consists of this very stunning physique print that’s impressed by David Hammons’s physique prints from the late ’60s and ’70s. Are you able to discuss that work and why you needed to take up that kind?
These prints are one other means by which I needed to depart from a traditional illustration of a physique in a means. These prints are made by utilizing the physique casts basically as rubber stamps. So, these prints are each trustworthy to the unique physique but in addition it deviates from its unique kind in a means that I feel opens the illustration of this physique to projection and one’s personal creativeness. It turns into extra open, for individuals to see themselves within the work. The print of two queer Korean girls kissing has an open-endedness to it, the additional summary high quality of it, the way in which that there’s a lot damaging area. I consider these damaging areas as areas and alternatives for individuals to see themselves, full the photographs, or think about what these our bodies might be like. It might be two males. It might be a person and a girl. It might be individuals of any race. I give it some thought as a transfer of generosity and inclusion for individuals.
There may be such a generosity to this work. Why do you are feeling like it’s so vital to supply these areas by which individuals can think about their very own physique within the work or carry to the work no matter it’s they need to?
Isn’t there sufficient exclusion? I don’t need to merely reply to exclusion by additional alienation. I need to experiment and discover with the probabilities for the way artwork can join in a different way between completely different teams of individuals to carry us nearer collectively. Folks can uncover new methods of regarding our our bodies or other ways of serious about transness or queerness in ways in which aren’t so scary or alienating for them however that really feel inviting and welcoming.
Human, perhaps too?
Yeah. Lots of the work is about how can I reply in a different way, and provoke a distinct response to transness moderately than simply concern and violence. All of the dangerous results of this second of recognition after which objectification of queer and trans our bodies.
An set up view of “RESISTERHOOD” on the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Artwork.
Picture Paul Salveson/ Courtesy the artist and Commonwealth and Council.
How did you come to call the present “Resisterhood”?
First, there’s “resist” within the title. Resistance and refusal are each a part of my work in some ways. Formally, relating to historic conventions of masculine, fashionable sculpture. After which a resistance towards conventions of illustration and visibility and the politics surrounding that. All of the casts that I make are what I name “invert casts” which are the impressions of our bodies which are not there. There’s absence moderately than a extra complete, singular full picture or type of a physique.
After which, I take into consideration the “sisterhood” side to it. There’s a lot about that connection and collectivity. This work is a lot a love letter to my neighborhood, to different queer and trans people. Having this present on the museum, I see my art work and myself as half of a bigger motion. I consider it as a type of resistance. For the neon work exterior [in the museum’s window spaces], I believed concerning the completely different phrases that would seem and shine: “resist,” “resist sister,” “resister,” “sister,” “sisterhood,” “resisterhood.” Perhaps that might be each uplifting and a name to motion. It can also an affirming embrace.
Are you able to speak extra about why you suppose it’s so vital to stage an exhibition like this at this second? What do you hope individuals take away from the exhibition?
In the beginning, I simply need queer and trans individuals and individuals who have non-normative our bodies to not really feel so alone or really feel hopeless throughout this time, however to really feel felt, affirmed, and seen as shimmering our bodies. And having this transformative potential as being empowering. What’s at stake for me, or the urgency of the present, is that I actually do consider that within the face of destruction and devastation, and within the face of very actual makes an attempt at erasing our existence, erasing the presence of trans our bodies, this can be a assertion that our our bodies, our take care of one another, our neighborhood, and our help exists and endures even by absence. I need to assert that queer and trans presence in a means. Via that love and care, and ephemerality and motion over permanence and rigidity. Transformation past illustration, too. They will by no means erase us. We’re simply going to maintain reworking and shining.
I’m very cognizant of the truth that that is for the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood, being in a queer museum. That makes me really feel so good. On the opening, simply to be surrounded by queer and trans people felt not simply affirming, however we had been so affirming of one another. It was such a joyful event, and I’ve by no means felt such an outpouring of affection and help for my work at a gap of an exhibition of mine earlier than in such a means. It simply felt so particular. I would like it to be this inviting and welcoming area inside a queer establishment for a broader public to return in. My hope is that completely different people really feel welcomed. As a lot as this work is for my neighborhood, I hope this art work can spark some empathy or new types of connection, creating an area the place we will all really feel nearer throughout instances after I and different individuals really feel actually divided from one another.
A view of the neon works in “RESISTERHOOD” by Younger Joon Kwak on the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Artwork.
Picture Paul Salveson/ Courtesy the artist and Commonwealth and Council.
One other a part of your follow is Mutant Salon, which you consider as a “queer-transfem-BIPOC collective magnificence salon and collaborative artwork and efficiency platform,” and your position because the lead performer of the drag-electronic-dance-noise band Xina Xurner. It’s talked about within the wall textual content however not represented within the exhibition. How do you suppose that efficiency and music work connect with the bodily objects are within the museum present?
One of many issues about efficiency is that it includes my physique. That could be very completely different from my physique because it exists within the sculptures within the present as a result of there are some individuals who will simply not have interaction with my physique on the planet. So, the probabilities and alternatives are completely different in these completely different contexts. I’m enthusiastic about all of those other ways of connecting with completely different individuals throughout completely different boundaries. I understand that these mediums can do various things and attain completely different audiences. This work is going down on this explicit institutional context and it could attain a distinct type of public than my Xina Xurner performances in punk underground areas the place it’s simply different queer and trans punks who will see the work. However I nonetheless get a lot out of that. It brings me a lot life. And I actually need that too. I must do Xina Xurner. I must be in neighborhood with different freaks. I must really feel affirmed in that means, in a extremely quick means. It’s therapeutic. It affords me that actual life, lived expertise of this collective transformation and help that I need to transfigure in a means with my gallery and museum work. I feel quite a bit about these completely different contexts and what I can do to the most effective of my skill in these completely different contexts.
I discussed earlier than how sure individuals simply gained’t have interaction with my physique on the road, however then, within the gallery, they may through these sculptures, through these proxies for my physique, serious about it by completely different supplies and simply throughout the historical past of sculpture. That’s why the title of a few of these sculptures is To refuse wanting away from our transitioning our bodies. That’s what my institutional and gallery work permits me to attain in a means that my efficiency work doesn’t. However that efficiency work additionally affords me one thing else that’s completely very important for me. That efficiency interplay informs my sculpture. I take into consideration this performative interplay between viewers members or viewers and the works within the exhibition. Efficiency is rather more of an area of wildness and chaos for me, whereas the works in my exhibitions are very experimental, however they’re additionally very calculated and labored on. I’m contemplating the viewer. As an artwork viewer myself, that will get me to interact extra with the work if I felt thought-about. I would like individuals to interact with the work and with transness. In my follow, I don’t need to have interaction with only one public or one viewers. I feel that has to do with this expertise of feeling trapped in a field, too, or being stared at. I already need to deal with being put in sure bins exterior of my will on a regular basis.
Is there the rest you need to add?
I need to invite queer and trans people, in addition to people too, to have their very own expertise of the work. All the pieces that I’m saying isn’t prescriptive about what the correct expertise, interpretation, or which means of the work ought to be for the viewer. Once more, I would like there to be area for individuals to venture themselves into it. That then will solely converse to the multiplicity of queerness and transness of the brand new types of relationality, of connecting with us moderately than additional dividing us.
These are scary instances that we stay in, and I really feel that there’s this demand for us to be scared, to cover, or to wither away or one thing. I would like to withstand that impulse too. We’re on a fucking mission to get a message on the market of safety, help, and validation for queer and trans people proper now.
