“At the end of the day, humans are self-contradictory. There is a tendency to polarise things into black-and-white situations, but really life is grayscale.” — Young-jun Tak
Young-jun Tak | Image courtesy of the artist and Say Who International
Young-jun Tak (b. 1989 in Seoul, South Korea) is a Berlin-based artist who traces the intersection of queer identity, religious beliefs, and specific spatiality, visualizing these structures through video, sculpture, and two-dimensional works. Tak examines sociocultural and psychological mechanisms that shape belief systems, ranging from simple worshipped objects to sophisticated forms of religions. Mixing media, techniques and subject matter, Tak pursues obfuscation as a mode of critique. In his sculptures, installations and films, Tak often exposes human bodies in the context of polarizing norms and conventions and tries to dissolve fossilized coded aesthetics—byproducts of polarizations and exclusions—for example, found in religious icons, propaganda tools, protest materials, gender symbols and so on.
Young-jun Tak, Chained (Twin), 2020 | Image courtesy of the artist and Fragment Gallery
Tak studied English Language and Literature, and Cross-Cultural Studies in Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. From 2012 to 2014, he worked as an editor for an art monthly magazine in Seoul. In 2016, he moved to Berlin for his artistic development, trying to work artistically rather than as a writer. He had solo exhibitions at PHILIPPZOLLINGER (Zurich, 2024), COMA (Sydney, 2024), Atelier Hermès (Seoul, 2023), Julia Stoschek Foundation (Berlin, Dusseldorf, 2023), palace enterprise (Copenhagen, 2023), Wanås Konst (Knislinge, Sweden, 2023), O—Overgaden (Copenhagen, 2023), Efremidis (Berlin, 2022), SOX (Berlin, 2022), and Fragment (Moscow, 2021). He also participated in international group exhibitions at Bangkok Art Biennale (2024), Chicago Architecture Biennial (2023), the High Line (New York, 2023), Lyon Biennale (2022), KINDL Center for Contemporary Art (Berlin, 2022), Berlin Biennale (2020), Seoul Museum of Art, SeMA Bunker (2019), Istanbul Biennial (2017) and among others. Tak’s work is part of the Julia Stoschek Collection, Burger Collection, Servais Family Collection, and the Collection of the Seoul Museum of Art.
From sculpture to his video work
Tak is a former journal editor who began his artistic practice in 2015 and preferred the tangibility of sculpture. The pamphlets and flyers collected from the pride parade in Seoul and from the conversion therapy centres, one of Christian institutions, were the materials for his sculptural works. Tak brought these documents with him when he moved to Berlin in 2016.
Young-jun Tak, Salvation, 2016 | Image courtesy of the artist
“That was the first time I went to Pride, and it was also the first time that Pride in Seoul was interrupted by homophobic Christian groups, who blocked the parade for around four to six hours. They cried, prayed, and handed out flyers… I collected their flyers and the illogical logic of their message stayed with me… I wanted to understand why they invested their time and effort into hating a group of people, so I began visiting Christian institutions and their so-called conversion therapy centres, collecting pamphlets and flyers from these places as evidence of my encounters.”
Young-jun Tak, Salvation, 2016 (Detail) | Image courtesy of the artist
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tak started following a lot of YouTube channels from home. He was inspired by the rehearsal videos from the channel of the international ballet companies such as The Royal Ballet in London. “I realized that I could work with video in a way that was almost sculptural. By showing the process of how choreography was created, I could make films that still incorporated a bodily element.”
Christianity and LGBTQ+ Community
“Ideas about rehearsal and choreography helped me connect sculpture to video, as a materialistic approach to an immaterial medium, which led to Wish You a Lovely Sunday.” The video boldly combines and juxtaposes two distinctive spatial settings—a church and a queer club. Two choreographers and two dancers were paired up to create a new choreography, for the church “Kirche am Südstern” and the queer club “SchwuZ” in Berlin respectively. Each pair was assigned to a different Bach piano piece for four hands.
Young-jun Tak, Wish you a lovely Sunday, 2021 (Still) | Image courtesy of the artist
After days of rehearsals and when the choreography was complete, their designated venues were then swapped. The participants did not know the exact location they would perform in until the actual day of filming, and, therefore, they had to reprogram their choreographies according to the new architectural features and atmosphere of the changed location.
Young-jun Tak, I need to switch myself, 2024 | Image courtesy of the artist and Sunpride Foundation
For Tak, churches and queer clubs are fundamentally equal as they both require specific rituals, behavioral norms, and attitudes closely linked to the space and its role. Both venues could be said to be fundamentally community-oriented spaces, which seek to offer comfort and welfare for either the visitor’s mind or body. Tak also utilises this experiment, the performers’ sensitive bodies and corporeal movements, to spotlight the heteronormality of architecture and place, emphasizing how sexual minorities have had to adapt themselves in given structures.
Young-jun Tak, Love your clean feet on Thursday, 2023 (Still) | Image courtesy of the artist and Sunpride Foundation
“Love your clean feet on Thursday” (2023) is Tak’s second film from the choreography film series that challenges the conventional binarity of gender through queer male bodies and movements. It juxtaposes the hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity: The former is presented by Spanish Legion soldiers’ spectacular annual Maundy Thursday ritual carrying the life-sized crucifix in Malaga during the Holy Week that leads to the Easter Sunday; and the latter can be found in the Royal Ballet’s former artistic director Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet Manon (1974) where numerous male dancers worship the eponymous female protagonist in Act 2 Scene 1 by constantly lifting up and carrying her in the air. In spite of the two situations’ obvious difference, the glorification of two gender displays surprisingly reveals their similarity, for instance, in the lifted bodies’ open arms.
Young-jun Tak, Love your clean feet on Thursday, 2023 (Still) | Image courtesy of the artist and Sunpride Foundation
In 2024, Tak’s first time to have a solo show, “I need to switch myself” in Australia, continuing to traverse his exploration into the unusual channels of communication between radical Christian organizations and queer communities – pulling a thread between two dissimilar places of worship through movement and course.
