Ken Gun Min’s Vision of Gay Utopia
about 5 months ago (12/06/2023)
Ken Gun Min’s Vision of Gay Utopia Skip to content Ken Gun Min, “East Hollywood Red Chair” (2023), oil, Korean pigment, silk embroidery thread, 66 x 54 inches (all photos David S. Rubin/Hyperallergic) LOS ANGELES — In Sweet Discipline from Koreatown , a new series of vibrant, colorful, thickly textured landscape and portrait paintings on view at Shulamit Nazarian, Korean-born Ken Gun Min introduces an exotic fantasy world that reflects his personal experiences and longings as a gay Asian man living in the diverse melting pot of Los Angeles. In the landscapes, most of which are based on real locations and their histories, he expresses nostalgia for what he calls the “classic gay cruising” of the pre-hookup app days that occurred in places such as MacArthur Park, where more recently trans women have been stabbed by a street gang. Several of the landscapes are populated with narratives in which naked men are at one with nature and each other in a paradise where virtually anything goes.