Young Joon Kwak, Maria Maea, & Mariah Garnett / Commonwealth and Council
- LA Art Documents
- 20 hours ago
- 3 min read
Young Joon Kwak: Glitter Mani Fest
Maria Maea: Prima Materia
Mariah Garnett: Life and Taxes
Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, CA
May 30, 2026–July 18, 2026
Commonwealth and Council presents Glitter Mani Fest by Young Joon Kwak. Spanning sculpture, painting, and the mixed-media artist book/zine Glitter Mani Festo (2026), the exhibition continues Kwak’s queering interrogation of dominant modes of representation of bodies in society and art history. The following text by Jennifer Doyle attends to the social, material, and sensory dimensions of the works on view. Young Joon Kwak's sculptures are social, produced in collaboration with her circle, and designed to invite us in.
These works are generated through the artist’s use of invert-casting: as she explains, rather than “building up a body as a solid form,” Kwak “works with the negative space” created as bodies are “pressed and held” in the generation of the mold. These sculptures record the fold of an embrace, the reach of an extension, the twists of entanglement. Their bodies are fragmented and open; we can explore them from what feels like the inside.
Maria Maea weaves collective and somatic histories with transcultural experiences in her art, using organic and locally found materials. In her presentation, Prima Materia, at Secret Asian Man, Maea sources palm fronds from the greater Los Angeles to create installations referencing myth-making, ancestral knowledge, and lived experiences as a first generation Angeleno of Samoan and Mexican heritage. Occupying the center of the gallery, a lioness composed of woven palms, cardboard, steel, and papier mâché commands attention with eyes made of green seashells. She is framed within an arch made up of wrought iron gate panels. Her body, open and positioned in a mid-leap, asserts power but also, a sense of playfulness that embodies the alchemical lion, also known as the green lion devouring the sun. The alchemical lion, a medieval symbol that represents raw, primordial, untamed natural forces, signifies the spiritual process of dissolving impurities and chemical dissolution to achieve a higher state of consciousness. Later adapted by psychotherapist, Carl Gustav Jung, the alchemical lion became a metaphor for the psychological process of becoming whole through self realization.
Mariah Garnett’s newest film, Life and Taxes, opens with a confession that is all too common. As a gentle elderly man in thick black frames, Sebastian, shuffles through what are supposedly the cameraperson’s tax documents, a voice behind the camera announces: “Most of my income was W-2. And I’m missing two 1099s.” This moment of self-reproach, one that will resonate with anyone familiar with the US's notoriously analog tax system, is then juxtaposed with a soft pan of the accountant’s desk that perhaps more accurately reveals his true self than his chosen profession. Sprinkled among heaps of paper, which are presumably documents for his clients, are indicators that give away his eccentricities. Plastered on the desk are stickers endorsing Elizabeth Warren and Greenpeace, on top of which playbills and miniature figurines are stacked haphazardly. Against the cameraperson hesitantly announcing that she “should have more than” what is listed as her 1099 income, the camera dwells on a sign that juxtaposes an old Uncle Sam with Ronald Reagan’s infamous quip (“a taxpayer is a person who does not have to pass a civil service examination to work for the government.”). Sebastian is not your everyday accountant.
