Young Joon Kwak (b. 1984, Queens, NY) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She received her MFA from University of Southern California (2014), her MA in Humanities from University of Chicago (2010), and her BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007).
Recent and upcoming solo exhibitions include the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, New York, NY (2025, upcoming); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA (2024); Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA (2021); Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles, CA (2021); MSU Union Gallery, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (2021); amongst others.
Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the ICA LA, Los Angeles, CA (2024); Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC (2024); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2023); MSU Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, MI (2023); and Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK (2023); amongst others. She is the recipient of an Artadia Award, Los Angeles (2024); was awarded the President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship from UC Riverside (2024); and received a Fellowship for Visual Artists from the California Community Foundation (2022); amongst others. Kwak was an Artist-in-Residence in Critical Race Studies at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (2020); Santa Fe Arts Institute, Santa Fe, NM (2020); and Maine College of Art, Portland, ME (2019); amongst others. Kwak’s work is in the collections of Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento; Dallas Museum of Art; MSU Broad Art Museum, East Lansing; and Speed Art Museum, Louisville.
