Young Joon Kwak and Kim Ye promenade down a small-town sidewalk in flowing pastel robes and lingerie. They feed each other ramen with seductive and messy fervor. They wrestle provocatively, thick makeup smearing down their faces. These vignettes weave in and out of each other, a fractured narrative filmed in 2018 in the idylls of Banff, Canada. The dreamlike video installation serves as the backdrop for the artists’ performance at the Wattis.

The performance reprises Ye and Kwak’s roles as Mommy and Baby, enacting an initiation into a stereotypical womanhood and destructive femininity. Ye draws on her history as a professional dominatrix to embody an overbearing maternal figure to Kwak’s young daughter. She torments and humiliates Baby, while leading her through the Wattis galleries, interacting with the audience. The pair leave an abject, corporeal mess in their wake.

The three-channel video installation Maternal River of No Return featured in the performance was commissioned by Walter Phillips Gallery with a score by Marvin Astorga.

Young Joon Kwak (b. 1984 in Queens, NY) and Kim Ye (b. 1984 in Beijing, China) are multidisciplinary artists based in Los Angeles. Kwak also fronts the electronic-dance-noise band Xina Xurner.

This is the eighth event in our year-long season dedicated to themes and questions posed by the work of Dodie Bellamy.