Stand Up NY Presents: MJ'S HOUR: K-COMEDY ART ACTIVISM

As a part of the “To Make Us Free: Witnessing Activism at Whitman & Beyond” exhibition programming by the Sheehan Gallery & Maxey Museum, at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.

Friday, February 20, 2026

Showtime: 6:00 PM, Doors open 5:30 PM

Olin Auditorium

Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA

Minimum age: 18 and over

Admission with registration

The ticket is free, and donation is encouraged.

All donations will go to Whitman College’s exhibition programming.

Please join us for an evening of standup comedy by artist Mina Cheon, aka MJ, Standup Korean. “MJ’s Hour: K-Comedy Art Activism” is an interwoven cultural comedy hour that includes topics of Korean shame, New York sex, Asian stereotypes, global geopolitics, life and death, art and comedy, and art history jokes.

MJ Standup Korean is a Professor Emerita and former Dean of an art college who has turned comedian. With a luscious career as a global Korean contemporary artist featured in museums, galleries, and biennales around the world, known as the artist Mina Cheon who does global peace work known as “Polipop,” political pop art, she takes the stage as a standup comic performing all around New York with art history jokes and observational, satiric, dark romantic comedy that is message-driven, once a professor, always professing. She is a cultural producer and curator and has mounted thematic comedy shows in art and cultural spaces, including the premier of bridging art and laughter for peace-building at KODA NY, K-Comedy Night at the AHL Foundation Annual Gala NY, and upcoming “A Banquet for Weddings and Funerals: A Comedy Show about Life and Death” at the Portobello Banquets, NJ. She joins the team at Stand Up NY as the Chief Talent Curator and Head of Creative Programming, and while her past academic career served faculty and students, she retired and happily serves comics as a living.

Mina Cheon, as a global Korean new media artist and scholar, human rights advocate, and peace-building activist, is best known for her “Polipop” art inspired by Pop Art and Social Realism. Her practice draws inspiration from the partition of the Korean peninsula, exemplified by her parallel body of work created under her North Korean alter ego, Kim Il Soon, in which she enlists a range of mediums including painting, sculpture, video, installation, performance, and public projects to deconstruct and reconcile the precarious history and ongoing coexistence between North and South Korea. Cheon has exhibited internationally, and participated in the Inaugural Asia Society Triennial, NY, the Busan Biennale, and has mounted solo exhibitions and retrospectives around the country and internationally. Her work is in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Smith College Museum of Art, Seoul Museum of Art, and she is represented by the Ethan Cohen Gallery in New York.

Stand Up NY, established in 1986, is one of New York City’s premier comedy clubs. Celebrated for its rich history and for showcasing outstanding performers, Stand Up NY has created an exclusive comedy experience that sets the standard for comedy clubs in New York and beyond. From Jerry Seinfeld to Chris Rock and Amy Schumer, Stand Up NY’s stage continues to be a breeding ground for the brightest stars of today and tomorrow.

“To Make Us Free: Witnessing Activism at Whitman & Beyond” makes visible the work that students, faculty and staff have done, and continue to do, within, and sometimes against, the institution in attempts to bring about change—in the institution itself, in the community, in the country or in the world at large. This exhibition spans both Sheehan Gallery and Maxey Museum.

MORE INFO