ADMISSION:
Admission is free. Reservations required.

RSVP  

DESCRIPTION:
In a wide-ranging conversation moderated by L.A.–based art historian Danielle Shang, artists Young Joon Kwak, Rafa Esparza, and Jennifer Ling Datchuk will share insights into their creative processes and discuss how they push the boundaries of traditional art forms through the innovative use of unique and unusual materials, as well as the challenges they face in working with unconventional mediums.  

This event is inspired by the USC Pacific Asia Museum’s newest exhibition, Cai Guo-Qiang: A Material Odyssey, which explores the transformative potential of diverse materials in contemporary art. 

Bios: 

Rafa Esparza was born and raised in Los Angeles and received a BA from UCLA in 2011. Solo and two-person exhibitions have been held at Commonwealth and Council, Mexico City (2024); Artists Space, New York (2023); Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2021); MASS MoCA, North Adams (2019); ArtPace, San Antonio (2018); and Ballroom Marfa (2017). Esparza’s work is in the collections of Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; Dallas Museum of Art; Kadist Art Foundation; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; San Jose Museum of Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Born in Queens, NY, and based in Los Angeles, Young Joon Kwak received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007, an MA from the University of Chicago in 2010, and an MFA from USC in 2014. They are the founder of Mutant Salon, a queer-transfem-BIPOC collective beauty salon and collaborative art and performance platform. They are also the lead performer of the drag-electronic-dance-noise band Xina Xurner. Their work has been widely exhibited at galleries and museums internationally, including at the Hammer Museum’s biennial exhibition Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living. Their next solo exhibition, Resistance Pleasure, opens at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in August 2024, with another major exhibition following at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York in 2025.

Artist Jennifer Ling Datchuk was born in Warren, OH, and raised in Brooklyn, NY. Her work is an exploration of her layered identity—as a woman, a Chinese woman, as an “American,” as a third culture kid. Trained in ceramics, Datchuk works with porcelain and other materials often associated with traditional women’s work, such as textiles and hair, to discuss fragility, beauty, femininity, intersectionality, identity, and personal history. Her work is in the collection at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, San Antonio Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. She is an assistant professor of ceramics at Arizona State University and lives and maintains a studio practice in Phoenix, AZ.

Danielle Shang (moderator) is a Los Angeles–based art historian, exhibition organizer, and artistic director at Cc Art Foundation, where she has shaped the collection and programs to focus on the Global South and Asian diasporas. Her research delves into the impact of globalization, urban renewal, social change, and class restructuring on artmaking and the narrative of art history. Shang has been a guest lecturer and speaker at institutions including the Hammer Museum, USC, UCLA, and Sotheby’s Institute of Art, as well as institutions in Asia. Her upcoming publications include a monograph on Huma Bhabha and a catalog for Minerva Cuevas, and future exhibitions include solo shows by Mexican artist Minerva Cuevas, Indonesian artist Julian Abraham Togar, and Chinese artist Liu Wei.  

Presented by USC Visions and Voices. Organized by the USC Pacific Asia Museum. 

Image Credit (Left): Young Joon Kwak, Circle Dance of Divine Queer Futures, 2022. Photo by Paul Salveson.
Image Credit (Top Right): Rafa Esparza, Trucha, 2024. Photo by Joshua White.
Image Credit (Bottom Right): Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Eat Bitterness, 2023. Photo by Colin Conces Photography.