ABOUT

Young Joon Kwak (they/she) is a Los Angeles–based artist whose work moves between sculpture, performance, and collective practice to explore bodily transformation, intimacy, and the politics of visibility. Through materially rich and sensorial approaches, Kwak challenges dominant modes of representation while imagining alternative ways that trans, queer, and other marginalized bodies might be seen.

Working with experimental processes such as invert-casting bodily impressions in glitter, resin, metals, iridescent crystals, and mirrors, Kwak creates luminous, shifting structures that respond to light, movement, and proximity. These works unsettle perception and invite intimate, sustained looking, encouraging viewers to reconsider how bodies are perceived and valued.

Collaboration and community are central to Kwak’s practice. They are the founder of Mutant Salon, a collective beauty salon and performance platform centering queer and trans artists of color, and the lead performer of the drag-electronic-dance-noise band Xina Xurner. Kwak’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with recent solo and two-person exhibitions at Esther Schipper, Seoul (2025); the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York (2025); and the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (2024). Group exhibitions and performances include Hauser & Wirth, New York; Tufts University Art Galleries, Medford; the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; the Art Museum of the National University of Colombia, Bogotá; and the Hammer Museum’s biennial Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living. A forthcoming presentation will appear in the Whitney Biennial (2026).

Honors include the Trellis Art Fund Milestone Grant (2024), Artadia Los Angeles Award (2024), the California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2022), and the Korean Arts Foundation of America Artist Award (2020). Kwak’s work has been featured in Artforum, ARTnews, Frieze, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Texte zur Kunst, and numerous books and journals.

Kwak is currently a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Riverside and serves on the board of Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). They are represented by Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles.

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