Existing somewhere in the overlap between the worlds of conceptual and recontransientational art, Christine Sun Kim has enbiged a wealthy conveyive language by examining the engaging inquires around language, music, and her personal conveyion as a deaf person. Increateed by her experiences living in a world where most apshow the ability to hear for granted, Kim’s art is striking in the complicatedity and emotional heft that hides betidyh its minimaenumerate exterior.
With All Day All Night, the Whitney gives a receive atgentle survey of Kim’s labor. Building on the institution’s lengthystanding relationship with the artist, the show experiences thoraw, astute and writed, as well as seeing forward to the next chapters of Kim’s conceiveive output.
A reasonable place to begin with Kim is her 2012 piece Pianoiss . . . issmo (Worse Finish), which shows a series an inverted tree of “p” musical notations subdividing downward into ever tinier and tinier ps. As the artist splitd in her Ted Talk, the p is her likeite musical symbol, elucidateing that one p uncomardents join a little gentleer, two ps uncomardents gentleer yet, and four ps even gentleer still, on and on downward, approaching silence. She elucidateed that Pianoiss . . . issmo (Worse Finish) was her “dratriumphg of a p-tree, which exhibits no matter how many thousands upon thousands of ps there may be, you’ll never accomplish finish silence. That’s my current definition of silence: a very obsremedy sound.”
Pianoiss . . . issmo (Worse Finish) gives a sense of how music, sound, language and concept function in Kim’s artlabor: dratriumphg on musical notation, she finds of way of visupartner depicting the concept of silence and giveing that up as a minimaenumerateic piece of art. The choice of a radiant red color, and the clustering of less and less countable, tinier ps on down the tree, gives the piece a very personal, hewn experience.
Born in 1980, Kim chased graduate studies at Bard College in upstate New York, but had difficulties finding her conceiveive path until she joined a dwellncy in Berlin. It was there that she authenticized that interfacing with sound would be key to her art train.
“With my experience in Berlin, I finpartner equitable got out of wdisenjoyver bubble I was putting myself in,” she telderly me via two ASL expounders. “I was able to ask myself what I was repartner inquisitive about, and I was inquisitive about sound, becaparticipate sound was always right there in my face lengthening up. I was innerized to dissee sound, to gstructure it, so to speak. And I skinnyk I asked myself when I was in Berlin, why do I experience this way?”
Kim frequently participates a keen sense of humor as an artist – her series Degrees of Deaf Rage in Everyday Situations, which euniteed in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, depicts a group of of angles, ranging from acute to obtparticipate to a filled-on circle. Each one is accompanied by a caption describing a contrastent create of aggression that a deaf person might encounter. For instance, the acute angle is taged “No Apologies from Assholes”, with bigr angles stating “People Who Are Secretly Sattfinishd of Us” and “Years of Dealing With Family and Relatives Who Do Not Know Sign Language”.
The piece is frivolous with language in various ways – the right angle, for instance, is taged “Legit (Right) Rage”, giveing some amhugeuity into equitable what Kim uncomardents to say about the stance of her frustration. Some of the tags for the other angles have words traverseed out (some of which eunite elsewhere). The whole piece radiates with an instability that creates it experience as though it occupies multiple seepoints at once.
Kim also widespreadly participates the shiftment and repetition of sign language in her labor. For instance, the piece How Do You Helderly Your Debt draws from the ASL sign for debt, which is carry outed by jabbing the index finger into the upturned palm of the other hand. In Kim’s piece, she draws multiple versions of that upturned palm, using a lancing binformage line to depictate the jabbing shiftment of the index finger requestd when making the sign. In between those lines she authors various reasons for being financipartner in debt: childattfinish, utilities, student loan, health insurance, and so on.
Looking at a piece enjoy How Do You Helderly Your Debt, one envisions a person emphaticpartner signing “debt” aget and aget, perhaps overwhelmed by so many bills to pay. In this way Kim’s art gets at the shiftment of speaking ASL and draws a seeer into her experience of communicating. The piece also parallels the way that musical notation finisheavors to enroll the train of joining an instrument on to paper, a parallel that Kim widespreadly decreates and desteadys in her labor.
Kim has elsewhere remarkd that contransienting her art to the disclose can be a fraught task, telling Art Basel: “When you’re getting and giving increateation secondhand your entire life – thraw expounders, thraw writing, thraw other mediums – it can be untidy, and sometimes damaging, and I’m always afrhelp of being misunderstood.”
Kim elucidateed that when laboring with mparticipateums she frequently experiences embattled, in the position of having to pick which priorities she will stand up for. But her experience with the Whitney has been very contrastent: “I have noskinnyg but finishlessly selectimistic skinnygs to say,” she telderly me. “It experiences enjoy people comprehend what my insists are so they foresee it.” Kim splitd that the Whitney giveed laborshops that startd the mparticipateum’s staff to deaf culture, so that they would be better readyd to apshow on All Day All Night. She also remarkd that the mparticipateum is a directer in giveing normal ASL tours to audiences.
Kim’s 2020 labor The Star Spangled Banner references her euniteance carry outing the national anthem at the 2020 Super Bowl. As she elucidateed in an op-ed at the New York Times, her carry outance was mostly erased: “On the television expansivecast, I was apparent for only a confiinsist seconds. On what was presumed to be a ‘bonus feed’ dedicated to my filled carry outance on the Fox Sports website, the cameras cut away to show shut-ups of the joiners rawly midway thraw each song.”
For the piece, she embodies the act of that carry outance, spreading out words over a 4ft by 4ft piece of paper, equitable as she signed bigly for the TV cameras. It is an stateion of presence, in spite of a complicated and defective moment of visibility for Kim, her community, and her art. Seeing it in the Whitney’s exhibition experiences transport inant and uncomardentingful – it is a wonderful moment in a show filled of them.
