Sensual Signs, Bejeweled Bodies, And More In ‘RESISTERHOOD’

On the outside of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, a series of neon signs pierce the eyes of those passing by. A sensually shaped glowing red hand depicts an all-too-familiar sapphic finger gesture and blinks from two fingers to a raised fist. A playful blue hand transitions from a stiff to limp wrist. Next to the animated hands, a bright, blinking scribble of the text depicts the words “sisterhood,” “resist,” and “resisterhood.”

The neon signs’ distortions call to the viewer in an ambiguous, playful light, encouraging them to bask in its joy and resistance behind glass.

Young Joon Kwak’s solo exhibition RESISTERHOOD is out of this world. In the interior of Leslie Lohman, we are greeted with floating, sparkly bedazzled sculptures consisting of bright, lively hues of blues, pinks, reds, yellows, oranges, and greens. If you walk around these sculptures, you will notice their grey interiors, which are embedded casts from parts of Kwak’s and others’ bodies.

“The pieces are bejeweled to draw them closer, to seduce them almost. The abstracted, camouflage-like patterns are not immediately recognizable as a way to invite viewers to engage with it and have an extended, delayed moment of recognizing what it is, moving around it, and having this experience of engaging with these bodies that is more active, prolonged, and involving a sense of discovery,” Kwak told ARTnews. “And when they turn the corner, they can have this moment of realization that they’ve had this intimate experience with a trans body, an embodied experience of what it means to exist and navigate the world as a trans body, in a way.”

The Queens-born, LA-based sculptor and performance artist has spent their career challenging the representation of marginalized bodies and imagining new spaces where they can thrive. Besides art, their advocacy shines in their role as the lead performer of a drag-electronic-dance-noise band called Xina Xurner, and a founder of Mutant Salon, a beauty salon, art studio, and platform for collaborative performance.

The shifting form of bright colors and textures in the casted sculptures celebrate and explore the transitional nature of bodies, specifically the experience of living in a trans and queer body.

While there are colorful, bright pieces throughout the exhibition, there is also a contrast with black ink prints along the walls. These prints work in conversation with the sculptures, as the inked body prints were made by using the body casts as rubber stamps. The prints look nothing like the sculptures and depict more of an abstract figure outside of a stereotypical convention of a body. 

RESISTERHOOD presents a way of breaking free, away from binaries in body and spirit. The sculptures electrify the viewer and present different ways of viewing transness and queerness through their sparkly configurations. The show bridges the relationship we have with our bodies and the bodies around us.

RESISTERHOOD is on view until July 27, 2025.