Objects of Pleasure

Objects of Pleasure (collaboration with Gala Porras-Kim)

2022

Color pencil and Flashe paint on paper, mahogany frame; Flashe paint, glitter, and acrylic on paper, mahogany frame

Two parts: 60.75 x 48.75 x 2.25 in (154 x 124 x 6 cm) each; overall: 60.75 x 98 x 2.25 in (154 x 249 x 6 cm)

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.