Christine Sun KIM

In her work, Berlin-based artist Christine Sun Kim, whose first language is American Sign Language (ASL), approaches the concept of sound via deconstructive exercises, experiments, and observations through drawing, painting, and performance. Over the course of developing her own visual language, Kim explores and employs elements from various information systems. By combining aspects of graphic and musical notation, body language, and ASL, she uses these systems as a means to expand what each is able to communicate and to invent a new grammar and structure structure for her compositions.
Performance is also part of Kim’s practice, often providing the starting point for works on paper that display witty evocations of both sounds and signs. She highlights what is constantly present and yet unnamed by us all through naming and then deconstructing preconceived ideas about sound and communication through their parameters, social values, and linguistics. Moreover, Kim works within and around the nuances of sound: at what point does noise become sound? When is something appropriate, and whose job is it to determine the agreeability of a sound, a noise, and their ensuing respectability or social capital?
Christine Sun Kim (b. 1980, California) received a Master of Fine Arts in Music / Sound from Bard College in 2013. She has exhibited and performed internationally, including at the Whitney Museum, New York (2018); Art Institute of Chicago (2018); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2017); De Appel Arts Center, Amsterdam (2017); Rubin Museum of Art, New York (2017); Berlin Biennale (2016); Shanghai Biennale (2016); Sound Live Tokyo (2015, 2013); MoMA PS1, New York (2015) and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013). Kim was awarded a MIT Media Lab Fellowship and a TED Senior Fellowship and has presented at numerous conferences and symposia. She lives and works in Berlin.
SELECTED WORKS
NEWS
With Sign Language and Sound, an Artist Upends Audience Perceptions
The New York Times
2022.7.9

Atlas of Affinities: Vol. 1, The Far-Near
Hua International
2022.4.29 – 2022.7.23
‘She’s creating her own language’ Christine Sun Kim’s unique sound art
The Guardian
2022.3.24

How I became an artist: Christine Sun Kim
Art|Basel
2022.3

CRIP TIME
Museum für Moderne Kunst MMK
2021.9.18 – 2022.1.30
Christine Sun Kim: On What Listening Looks Like
The Gentlewoman Magazine, Issue 24, Autumn. Winter.

Christine Sun Kim与ARGOS总监谈如何将“残障”问题框定在污名之外
Ocula
2021.8.14

Interweaving Poetic Code
Mill 6 CHAT
2021.5.1 – 7.18
American Sign Language Finds Its Spotlight
The New York Times
2021.3.25

Translating Deaf Culture, Christine Sun Kim Underlines the Difficulty of Interpretation
Hyperallergic
2021.1.19
‘I Want to Be Able to Maintain My Clear Voice’: Artist Christine Sun Kim on Translating Her 2020 Into Trenchant New Drawings
artnet news
2020.12.15

100 Drawings from Now
The Drawing Center, New York
2020.10.7 – 2021.1.17

Readings From Below
Times Art Center Berlin
2020.9.10 – 2021.1.31

MAGICAL SOUP
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
2020.9.6 – 2021.1.3

Studio Berlin
Berghain, Berlin, Germany
2020.9.9 – 2021.6.27

The Sound of Passing Time: Christine Sun Kim
Mousse Magazine
2020.7.4

Étude
Aranya Art Center
2020.5.23 – 8.23

Christine Sun Kim at MIT List Visual Arts Center
Artforum International
2020.3.2
This artist signed the national anthem for Super Bowl audiences. With her MIT show, she nudges visitors toward ‘respecting our deafness.’
The Boston Globe
2020.2.13
Deaf Artist’s National Anthem Interpretation Is Required Viewing for the Super Bowl
Time
2020.2.3

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose
HOW Art Museum
2019.12.21 – 2020.4.12

Ways of Seeing
Daejeon Museum of Art
2019.11.5 – 2020.1.27
An Artist Who Channels Her Anger Into Pie Charts
The New York Times Style Magazine
2019.5.21
Christine Sun Kim
Berlin Art Link
2019.2.8
Review: What does sound look like? Artist Christine Sun Kim’s funny, at times enthralling answers
Los Angeles Times
2019.1.18
Christine Sun Kim
Art Forum
2018.12.23
Navigating Laws and Accessibility in Exhibition Practices
Art Asia Pacific
2018.4.23
Artist Christine Sun Kim on Drawing, Sound, and Interpreting
Humor and the Abject
2018.3.28
Show & Tell with Artist Christine Sun Kim
standardhotels
2018.3.20
Christine Sun Kim
Seoul Museum of Art
2017.11.19
크리스틴선킴 Christine Sun Kim
Art in Culture
2017.1.17

Interviews: Christine Sun Kim
Artforum
2015.11.25
Good Vibrations-Catriona Gray
BAZAAR-ART
2016.11.18

11th Shanghai Biennial: Why not ask again
Power Station of Art
2016.11.11 – 2017.3.12
Harley Weir celebrates female creativity in new film series for Chanel and i-D
CREATIVE REVIEW
2016.11.8
A Silent Soundwalk, Noisy with Abstract Compositions
HYPERALLERGIC
2016.11.4
10 Artists You Might Not Know Are Berlin-Based
Sleek Magazine
2016.10.6
The Politics of Sound:An Interview with Christine Sun Kim
Art in America
2016.10.6
10 Artists You Might Not Know Are Berlin-Based | Sleek Magazine
12 Sound Artists Changing Your Perception of Art
artnet
2016.8.24
Meet The Sound Artist Who’s Changing The Way We Listen
UPROXX
2016.5.12

Point to Line
Jewelvary Art & Boutique
2016.5.12 – 6.24
Christine Sun Kim
Arban
2016.5.11
The Deaf Artist Reconstructing Sound
OZY
2016.4.27
Pay It Forward, Christine Sun Kim
Artforum
2016.3.26

The Aural Artist
Interview Magazine
2015.12.14