Young Joon Kwak, Trans-Creation Relic, 2017. Cold-cast aluminum, resin, soil, rocks, 5 x 14 x 6 inches. Image courtesy the artist and Commonwealth & Council.
Walter Phillips Gallery
107 Tunnel Moutain Drive
Banff, Alberta
Date
Curator
Jacqueline Bell
The Cave assembles new and existing sculpture and video works. Interrogating the cultural phenomena of the man cave, the exhibition speaks to the ecstatic mutability of bodies and the relationship between the cave, the cinema, and the dark closeness of the club.
Editors' Comment
Is the “man cave” on the verge of extinction? Against the idealized backdrop of Banff, Young Joon Kwak—Los-Angeles-based artist and founder of Mutant Salon, “a roving beauty salon/platform for experimental performance collaborations with their community of queer, trans, femme, POC artists and performers”—asks this question from a queer, racialized perspective. Watch for works that reflect on the tourist experience of Banff, but without the usual postcard-eque depiction strategies. It’s no mistake Kwak’s work was an Artforum critic’s pick in LA over the summer; now, north of the 49th, it’s high time for Canadians to catch up on Kwak’s au-courant, and deeply collaborative, practice.