{"id":2626,"date":"2025-03-27T22:03:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T22:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/27\/exhibition-review-christine-sun-kim-all-day-all-night-in-ny\/"},"modified":"2025-03-27T22:03:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T22:03:46","slug":"exhibition-review-christine-sun-kim-all-day-all-night-in-ny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/27\/exhibition-review-christine-sun-kim-all-day-all-night-in-ny\/","title":{"rendered":"Exhibition Review: Christine Sun Kim, \u201cAll Day All Night\u201d in NY"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader, ATTENTION<\/em>, 2022. Photograph by Ron Amstutz<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cPractically all my life, people have spoken or voiced on my behalf,\u201d artist Christine Sun Kim<\/a> once said<\/a>. But at the Whitney, in an exhibition spanning four floors, it\u2019s her voice we perceive in the signature graphs and charcoal notations that fill the walls. For Kim, who is Deaf, art is a language. Her charcoal graphics are deep, at times humorous, critiques of gaps and discrepancies she has noticed between the hearing and Deaf worlds. \u201cFlight attendant leaves suitcase on the runway because when asked in spoken English no one claimed it,\u201d she writes in a piece titled Degrees of My Deaf Rage in the Art World<\/i>. On paper, Kim unleashes frustration\u2014her rage, as she calls it\u2014inspired by experiences that are honest and, at times, intense.<\/p>\n

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Christine Sun Kim, Ghost(ed) Notes<\/em>, 2024 (detail, re-created 2025). Photograph by David Tufino<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kim\u2019s lifelong search for sound and its meaning is apparent in her survey at the Whitney, which ranges from the early 2010s to 2024. In one of her early sound-performative works, Selby Circle<\/i> (2011), she drops paint brushes on a rattling beating drum, creating images on the drum pad\u2014she\u2019s searching, here and elsewhere, for sound\u2019s visual equivalent. However, that early work falls flat in comparison to the newer pieces that surround it. In her recent drawings, charts and musical notation are abundant\u2014notes suspended in mid-air, ungrounded by a staff, symbols of the idea of sound rather than a map of sound itself. The charcoal she frequently uses evokes another layer of tactility. Her smudges are visible, the motion of her hands resonating across the paper\u2014the same hands she uses to sign.<\/p>\n

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SEE ALSO: <\/i><\/b>Leonor Fini\u2019s Mythmaking, Masquerades and Resurgent Market<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In her day-to-day, Christine Sun Kim is surrounded by a panoply of languages. Her partner, artist Thomas Mader<\/a>, is German. They speak to their child in their shared and individual languages: English, German and ASL. American Sign Language could be said to have multiple alphabets within it. ASL uses not only hands but facial expressions, as well\u2014something she jokes in her work as being difficult with a German partner whose engagement with facial expressions is culturally subdued. In their collaborative work, Sun and Mader find common languages of sight and sound, discovering new gestures and words together in video pieces. Their attempt at translation is felt and heard, even through the screen and even in languages the audience might not understand. In their largest collaborative piece, ATTENTION<\/i> (2022), two large red hands inflate and deflate on each side of a large stone. One finger taps the stone, and the other hand gently strokes it; the wall text suggests that, in ASL, \u201ca common method of attracting another person\u2019s attention is by waving your palm downward within their field of vision.\u201d Getting attention or bringing someone\u2019s attention to something can also mean raising awareness. As part of the exhibition, the Whitney is providing ASL tours, something that has been previously available at the institution and other museums but one hopes will become more widespread.<\/p>\n

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Christine Sun Kim, America\u2019s Debt to Deaf People<\/em>, 2022. Charcoal on paper, 44 \u00d7 44 in. (112 \u00d7 112 cm). Collection of Jackson Tang. \u00a9 Christine Sun Kim. Courtesy Fran\u00e7ois Ghebaly Gallery and WHITE SPACE. Photograph by Stefan Korte<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the end, all of Kim\u2019s frustrations and rage blossom into hope. I was surprised that despite all the anger in her drawings, there is still an underlying optimism. She is still searching for a universal language. In One Week of Lullabies for Roux<\/i> (2018), one of the few sound pieces in the exhibition, you can listen to music composed by several of Kim\u2019s friends, using her text instructions, for her daughter. There is a plush, colorful bench to sit on as you listen through headphones. What you hear isn\u2019t just song; it\u2019s the artist\u2019s community coming together, creating their own worlds of sound for Christine Sun Kim.<\/p>\n

Christine Sun Kim\u2019s \u201c<\/b>All Day All Night<\/b><\/a>\u201d is on view at the Whitney through July 6, 2025.<\/b><\/p>\n

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Christine Sun Kim\u2019s Degrees of Deaf Rage<\/em> series (2018). Photograph by David Tufino<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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