The film “Love Your Clean Feet on Thursday” (2023) challenges the conventional binary presentation of genders through queer male bodies and movements. It juxtaposes the hypermasculinity, staged by Spanish Legion soldiers’ spectacular Maundy Thursday ritual, carrying the crucifix in Malaga during the Holy Week that leads to the Easter Sunday, and, on the other hand, the hyperfemininity, worshiped by numerous male dancers, constantly lifting up and carrying the eponymous female protagonist in Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet “Manon” (1974). Throughout the film, while alternating with the Christian ritual, six gay male dancers’ choreography in Berlin’s popular gay cruising forest Grunewald fills the gap between the polarized gender presentations by showing apparent differences and revealing bizarre similarities.
Biography
Young-jun Tak examines sociocultural and psychological mechanisms that shape belief systems. 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. Tak had solo exhibitions at 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 participated in international exhibitions at the High Line (New York, 2023), Chicago Architecture Biennial (2023), Lyon Biennale (2022), KINDL Center for Contemporary Art (Berlin, 2022), Berlin Biennale (2020), Seoul Museum of Art, SeMA Bunker (2019), Istanbul Biennial (2017) among others. He holds BAs in English Literature and Language and Cross-Cultural Studies at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. He currently lives and works in Berlin.