Thank you @andrewrusseth for your extraordinarily thoughtful review of my and @sarasejinchang_vanderheide’s show at @arko_art_center in the new issue of @artforum, and for touching on why having this show in Korea during this time meant so much to me. Grateful to be together with Sara & to @jee9300 for making it all happen. 🫂 Tickled giddy by your words on my work; some highlights: “ Imagine Alina Szapocznikow at a very fun discotheque.” 🫠 “She is screaming, and she is having the time of her life, “ 👍 👏👏👏🫶🫶🫶 Link in bio. Image: @xinaxurner: Burn Slow, collabo with #christopherrichmond

Proud to be part of @calfund’s 2022 cohort of visual artist fellows. Thank you CCF and panelists. After many years of applying, so happy and relieved I cried. 😭 Thanks to my community in #LA. Looking forward to our continued collaborative/collective growth. #mutantsalon Congrats to the #FVA2022 artist fellow fam: April Banks, Asher Hartman, Enrique Castrejon, Iris Yirei Hu, June Edmonds, Nao Bustamante, Patty Chang, Phung Huynh, Reanne Estrada, Sandra Low, Suné Woods 2nd photo by Christopher Richmond

Mama @kimyekimyekimye and I are showing our video “Where I Am My Own Other, Where My Mother Is Me” (with Korean subtitles!) as part of the Frieze Seoul Film Program: I Am My Own Other. We are showing at Magjib (25, Jahamun-ro 8-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul), 8/31—9/ 7. Thanks @jigu.nee, @ellieylee, @cyknyc, @kibumk, the awesome korean translator for Kim’s trash talk, and everyone else at @gyopo.us and @wess.seoul that helped put this together. Details:   *기획/Curated by: WESS(웨스) & GYOPO(교포) *참여작가/Artists: 차재민(Jeamin Cha), 장서영(Seo Young Chang), 정지수(Jisoo Chung), 업체eobchae, 홍민키(Minki Hong), 권동현x권세정(DonghyunxSea Jung Kwon), 니키 리(Nikki S. Lee), 이재이(Jaye Rhee), 라리사 로저스(LaRissa Rogers), 곽영준과 김예 (Young Joon Kwak and Kim Ye) *장소 및 일시/Location & Time —막집(Magjib): 8. 31.—9. 7. 서울특별시 종로구 자하문로8길 25 25, Jahamun-ro 8-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul —투게더투게더(Together Together): 9. 2.—9. 7. 서울시 종로구 율곡로3길 74-18 74-18 Yulgok-ro 3-gil, Jongno-gu Seoul 서울과 미국 로스앤젤레스를 기반으로 활동하는 비영리 예술 단체 WESS(웨스)와 GYOPO(교포)가 공동 기획한 ‘프리즈 필름 2022(Frieze Film)’은 올해 처음 개최되는 프리즈 서울의 연계 프로그램으로, 주목할만한 작품세계를 지닌 한국과 다양한 한국계 디아스포라 예술가/팀의 영상작업 10점을 소개합니다. ‘I Am My Own Other’이라는 제목아래 함께 선보이는 각 작품은 기술 발전이 촉발시키는 개인의 정체성, 젠더, 국가, 사회적 적합성 등에 대한 새로운 개념과 혼란, 그리고 이주와 초자본주의의 맥락에서 바라본 정체성의 이슈에 관한 흥미로운 시선과 언어를 담고 있습니다. For the inaugural Frieze Seoul Film Programme, GYOPO, an arts non-profit organization based in Los Angeles, and WESS, a non-profit curatorial platform based in Seoul, have co-curated an exhibition of video works by Diasporic and local Korean artists. The show spans two locations near Kyungbok Palace, Together Together and Magjib. Included works explore themes such as the effects of technology on ideation of Self, framing of Nationhood, gender and societal conformity, and racial identities within the context of migration and hypercapitlism. The backdrop of Seoul’s first Frieze Art Fair offers viewers a unique  opportunity to situate contemporary video art practices in a global art context.

We did it sis @itsgala! Repost @commonwealthandcouncil: For the inaugural Frieze Seoul, Commonwealth and Council presents a selection of work by Carmen Argote, Carolina Caycedo, Clarissa Tossin, Elle Pérez, Gala Porras-Kim, Kang Seung Lee, and Young Joon Kwak. The gallery's location in Koreatown, Los Angeles—home to not only the eponymous Korean diaspora community, but also an even larger Latinx population—invites us to consider the intricate and varied threads of lives and stories that extend across continents and borders. From a sparkling kiss shared between a Korean femme couple to a vision of an interstellar future interwoven with corporate hallmarks and repurposed plastic waste, these artists propose ways of being, grounded in rich and complex histories yet reveling in tangents and alleyways of intersection and solidarity. Pictured here is Objects of Pleasure, a new collaboration between Gala Porras-Kim and Young Joon Kwak queers Porras-Kim’s Index drawings, which catalog cultural artifacts in wry, arbitrary logic to critique the perhaps equally arbitrary designations assigned to them by institutions. This latest iteration in the series presents an array of historical sex objects—literal fetishes, recontextualized as objects of institutional desire. Kwak’s negative-image counterpart transmutes these objects into a queer vision of joyous celebration of sexuality, replacing the anthropological curiosities with contemporary adult paraphernallia, resplendent yet coy in their glittering silhouettes. 📷: @sevlasphoto

Excited about giving an Artist POV Tour of the exhibition up RN @theicala “The Condition of Being Addressable.” If you haven’t already seen the show, come join me at @theicala on Wednesday 8/31, 7pm, for some REAL conversation with yall about what the condition of being addressable means for marginalized bodies, the politics of visibility/invisibility, of representing/abstracting our bodies, the power of being a glitch in the system, and the potential to resist and fuck the patriarchal gaze. One of the curators of the exhibition is Legacy Russell @ellerustle, whose book “Glitch Feminism” rocked my world–pick it up if you haven’t already (also in audiobook)! The exhibition features work by several artists I admire like Sondra Perry, whose sculpture I’m riding in the first pic (📸 @asukahisa). Link for event RSVP in bio @theicala #TheConditionOfBeingAddressable #SondraPerry #GlitchFeminism

Belated 🇰🇷 appreciation post! The first presentation of my big ol body [of work] in Korea #AllAboutLove came down a few weeks ago at @arko_art_center, after many years of feeling that being queer and trans/femme/non-binary invalidated me as a Korean (or American for that matter), placeless, in between cultures. So happy to connect with all the queerdos in Korea (we’re everywhere!), and to show 뽀뽀 and 성스러운 뽀뽀 (Kiss + Divine Kiss), cast from a loving couple kissing (in the same pose as David Wojnarowicz’s kissing figures in his piece “Fuck You Faggot Fucker”) as a glimmering beacon of the potentiality of queer Korean femme love. Art allows me to rethink our placelessness and fragmented identities as a position of gorgeous empowerment born from glitches in an antiquated system, that gives us the freedom to build new bodies, communities, realities, and futures. Thank you so much to bad-ass curator @jee9300 💥, Jade, and everyone at Arko! So cool to get to be in conversation with @sarasejinchang_vanderheide All the responses I received from the show have given me life. I know [my] shit can get gross and ugly, but hope that y’all still feel valued and seen as beautiful. #QueerKoreanLove #뽀뽀

Thanks to all that came out last night. Special thanks to our collaborator CREEPYPASTA PUTTANESCA @a_nice_cult. Thank you @page__person for organizing and @cat.taft.cat and Kameron and Hamza and team at @laxart. Thanks to the other amazing performers and to T-girl Taco’s. 💋💋💋

A different kind of @xinaxurner performance with the incredible #CREEPYPASTAPUTTANESCA this Sunday at @laxart. #creepypasta is so much more than a surrogate for my injured/healing body; she is my extra dimensional shadow sister goddexx and we are birthing something wild and new together. Also can’t wait to see performances by @dvvsk_ and @page__person and crew. ——— TIPPING POINTS Sunday, July 17, 2022 5pm @laxart 7000 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles. LAXART is pleased to present TIPPING POINTS, a program of performance-based work from trans and gender nonconforming artists, organized and hosted by @page__person featuring @dvvsk_official @xinaxurner with @a_nice_cult and @page__person with 10 drag performers. ******************* TIPPING POINTS invites trans/GNC artists to create “humanizing reference points” based on their own lived experience. Taking radical control of one’s body and the narrative surrounding it is at the heart of these artists performance practices. Each has a unique physical reality that affects how they are seen socially,and each uses live art to expand that narrative. At a time when bodily autonomy is in crisis, it is of dire importance to give space for individuals to take control of the language surrounding their body and presence in the world. A tipping point has been crossed from which these individuals can no longer be silent. With LGBTQIA+—and specifically trans/GNC—rights constantly up for debate, it is more important than ever that we hold space for their stories be told by them on their terms.

I love collaboration. I collaborated on this 3-channel video installation with artist/filmmaker Christopher Richmond 9 years ago called Slow Dance, which we shot at his grandmother’s California suburban home where she lived longer than I've been alive (til she passed a few years ago, RIP). I remember thinking that for me it was about intimacy with this ill-fitting racialized/sexed body, feeling of isolation and placelessness in a foreign/western domestic space, and erotic play with the heteronormative gaze—kind of a slow dance of living and surviving the heteronormative American dream. Took on a new relevance for me during the pandemic, and anti-asian shitstorm. So happy to show this installation publicly for the first time! Means so much to me to show it in Korea. I learned so much from Christopher and love our friendship and long-standing collaborative relationship. I know this piece takes on other meanings for Christopher, and that people have their own interpretations of this piece, many who tell me that it's so different from their ideas of me or my work, to which I say YESSSSSS ONE MORE WEEK to see it in person at @arko_art_center 💃🫂 #allaboutlove #allaboutintimacy #christopherrichmond #collaboration #weallcontainmultitudes

Hermaphroditus' Reveal III, 2018-21 Less than two weeks til #AllAboutLove closes at @arko_art_center. Such a wonderful experience connecting with audiences in Korea with new work and old and redone work in new ways. The install team did an awesome job sourcing materials and making a [western-style] bathroom stall partition for the exhibition to install this piece before I arrived. 🧎∣🚽

Throwback to @sarasejinchang_vanderheide's and my post exhibition opening dinner with some other great folx @arko_art_center #allaboutlove 💜✨

Repost @arko_art_center: [현재전시] 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟤 Invitational 𝖤𝗑𝗁𝗂𝖻𝗂𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇 ✔ 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟤 아르코미술관 기획초대전 《올 어바웃 러브: 곽영준&장세진(사라 반 데어 헤이드)》 𝔸𝕃𝕃 𝖠𝖡𝖮𝖴𝖳 𝓛𝓞𝓥𝓔 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟤.𝟧.𝟣𝟫 - 𝟩.𝟣𝟩 - ✨제2 전시장 둘러보기👀✨ 아르코미술관 2층 제 2전시실에서는 곽영준 작가의 조각과 영상 작품을 감상하실 수 있습니다. 1층 계단을 따라 이어지는 2층 전시실에서 들어서면 흰 바닥을 구획으로 설치된 네 개의 조각을 마주하게 됩니다. 가장 앞쪽의 분홍색 조각은 〈헤르마 에르퀼린〉(2017)으로, ‘헤르마'라는 전통 조각과 인터섹스(간성)였던 프랑스인 에르퀼린 바르뱅의 이름을 합쳐 제목을 지었습니다. 헤르마란 그리스·로마 시대에 남성의 얼굴과 성기를 사각형의 기둥에 조각해 건물 입구에 세워 악한 기운을 물리치기를 기원한 조각상입니다. 작가는 자웅동체의 성기와 손의 제스처를 헤르마에 조각했고, 이를 통해 이분법적 젠더라는 고정관념을 해체합니다. 〈헤르마프로디토스의 폭로〉 시리즈 조각들은 유연하게 흐르는 듯한 곡선의 구조물과 손이 결합된 형태를 띕니다. 제목 속 '헤르마프로디토스'는 그리스 신화의 헤르메스와 아프로디테의 양성구유 자손을 이릅니다. 전시장 기둥 뒤 모니터를 통해 재생되는 〈천천히 불사르기〉(2015), 〈아, 마치 그렇게〉(2012)는 작가의 또 다른 자아이며 뮤지션인 '지나 저너(Xina Xurnar)'의 퍼포먼스가 담긴 영상입니다. 사각형의 구멍을 낸 벽 구조물 너머에서는 영상 〈슬로우 댄스〉(2013)가 상영됩니다. 전통적인 가사공간에서 어색하고 혼란스러워하는 인물이 등장하며, 영상은 관객을 은밀한 공간으로 초대하는 듯이 연출됐습니다. - [Current] 𝖠𝖱𝖪𝖮 𝖠𝗋𝗍 𝖢𝖾𝗇𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟤 𝖨𝗇𝗏𝗂𝗍𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇𝖺𝗅 𝖤𝗑𝗁𝗂𝖻𝗂𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇 ✔︎ All About Love: Young Joon Kwak & Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide) ▪May 19th - Jul 17th, 2022 ▪Opening Hour 11AM - 7PM(Closed on Mondays) ▪ARKO Art Center Gallery 1, 2 ▪Artists : Young Joon Kwak & Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide) ▪Hosted by Arts Council Korea & ARKO Art Center ▪Sponsored by Netherlands Embassy in Korea, YWS Foundation, Mondriaan Fund ▪In cooperation with CGSI Critical Global Studies Institute, Sogang University

Bye Korea! Some photos from my time here—meeting friends old and new, bits of home in the motherland. 🙏💜💋🇰🇷

@yongsoonmin!!! So happy to see #YongSoonMin’s gorgeous self in this series from 1989 at @seoulmuseumofart. Also these beautiful Jung Jungyeob woodblock prints 💥💥💥💜 #letsraise #jungjungyeob #feministart #Koreanart #modelminority

A few photos of my still-early/fresh career survey 😂🤓 at @arko_art_center. 📸1+2 by @haneyl_choi and the rest by @arko_art_center & me.

Attn: SEOUL 📣🇰🇷 Repost @xinaxurner Hey fam! We’re so happy to be performing together for the first time in Seoul this Saturday at the legendary @trunk_seoul! It’s an honor to perform alongside all these gorgeous Korean GODDESSES! Thank you for hosting us punx @mini_han @chulhwa and thank you to our sisters @haneyl_choi @kangseunglee and Angela and staff at @arko_art_center for helping to make this lil dream of ours to connect with the KUEER children come true. We love you and can’t wait to dance together Saturday night. See you soon 💄🇰🇷🪩👯‍♀️🌈⚡️🎶💋💋💋 📸 by @austinyoungforever #austinyoung Posted @withregram • @trunk_seoul 이번 주 토요일 ART pARTy🌈 LA를 기반으로 국제적으로 활동하는 아티스트 듀오 @xinaxurner 와 함께하는 <ART pARTy> @xinaxurner 의 멤버 @youngjoonkwak 은 혜화역에 위치한 아르코 미술관에서 이번 주 목요일부터 열릴 전시를 위해 내한합니다. 내한 기념으로 이번 주 토요일 트렁크에서 저희 퍼포머들과 <ART pARTy>를하게 될 예정이니 많은 관심과 기대 부탁드립니다:) 아트파티의 컨셉에 맞춰 새로운 퀸의 데뷔 무대도 있으니 기대해 주세요! 아르코 미술관의 전시도 많은 관심 부탁드립니다🙏🏻🙃 🌏DJ🌍 @carterrkim @__hogi__ @다이브 ⭐️STARRING⭐️ @mini_han @kuciia @beautiaaa @chanel_wonjung @princessarielll_ @whyimsj & @xinaxurner 테이블 예약 및 문의는 아래 번호로💌 ‭+82 10-9074-8212‬ #BeBoldoritalicneverregular

All my gear packed and trekking to share my art + performance with the children of the motherland with an exhibition at @arko_art_center and a @xinaxurner performance at @trunk_seoul. C u later LA, and c u real soon Korea! 👠🕊✨💜 1st image: @cmonstah #drraaagggg #xinaxurner #delacalle

Proud to open a show in my homeland at @arko_art_center with @sarasejinchang_vanderheide May 19 - July 17 #allaboutlove #allaboutintimacy #queeringintimacy see you soon Seoul! 💋

Received a copy of #WorldofArt #ArtinCalifornia by #JenniSorkin. Happy that #MutantSalon was included in this epic survey of art in California from the 20th century to the present. Thank you @jennisorkin for your words and dedication to this project. Humbled to be situated in a canon with some other badass queer/trans/POC artists shifting discourse. 💜✨ photo/illustration by @pingpongpaw of #MutantSalon #Exorcises at @commonwealthandcouncil, 2016

SATURDAY DAYTIME RAGE CRUISE @cruise_la @eagle_la Re-post @cruise_la: Just added! SPECIAL GUEST PERFORMANCE BY Xina Xurner (@xinaxurner) is an experimental music/performance collaboration between Marvin Astorga And Young Joon Kwak, whose cathartic performances combine DIY and power electronics, mutated vocals, and bad drag to expand ideas about queer and trans bodies. Their music combines a variety of genres (including happy hardcore, industrial, drone metal, and techno), in order to create sadical and sexperimental noise-diva-dance anthems that evoke a sense of transformation, rebirth, and renewal. Xina Xurner released their debut album "DIE" in 2012 and their follow-up, “Queens of the Night,” was released in April 2018. Xina Xurner will make you sweat. Photo: @barakzemer #barakzemer #xinaxurner