Christine Sun Kim explores sound in American Sign Language and written in English, nudging people to break free from audio-centric world
American artist Christine Sun Kim visualizes sound in her own language, expanding people’s perception on how they can communicate in the audio-centric world. The artist’s first major museum exhibition opened on Saturday at the Whitney Museum in New York, running through July.
“When it comes to deafness and my ideas around sign language -- it is hard to maybe connect those ideas with general audiences, so what I do is change the form of my ideas, borrowing something like musical notation to convey my ideas and concepts,” said the artist in a video guide provided by the museum.
“This is similar to how I interact when I am signing: I bring in interpreters to voice what I am saying which helps audiences connect to me better and that is how I play the game,” she added.
The exhibition “Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night” encompasses the entire body of the artist's work to date and features works ranging from early 2010s performance documentation to a recent site-responsive mural titled “Ghost(ed) Notes,” according to the museum.
Kim, currently based in Berlin, expresses how sound operates in society as social currency and deconstructs the politics of sound in a witty manner. She confronts the systemic marginalization of the deaf community through her art.
“The exhibition invites viewers to reconsider the importance placed on sound,” said Jennie Goldstein, the Jennifer Rubio associate curator of the collection at the museum. “It encourages us to consider the diversity and richness of deaf culture and the complexities of identity more broadly, in relation to artistic collaboration, parenthood, immigration or diasporic experience.”
Across three galleries – on the first, third and eighth floors -- of the museum, some 90 works by the artist are on view. The museum offers video guides from artists and curators on selected works from the exhibition on its website
“Ranging in scale from intimate charcoal drawings to architectural installations, Kim’s work is full of acerbic wit and pointed commentary, while generously offering ways for audiences to understand how the artist navigates the world,” said Scott Rothkopf, Alice Pratt Brown director of the Whitney.
The exhibition was organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. The Korea Foundation, which has supported overseas exhibitions of Korean artists over the three decades, is one of supporters of the exhibition in New York.
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