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    Christine Sun Kim: Ghost(ed) Notes

     
    Exterior Mural
    June 2024 - June 2025
    Christine Sun Kim (b. 1980, Orange County, California; based in Berlin, Germany) is a groundbreaking artist exploring sound's social and political dimensions. In her first Seattle exhibition at the Henry, Kim presents Ghost(ed) Notes, a mural animating the museum’s east façade with her distinctive visual approach.
    Influenced by non-verbal communication, Kim merges graphic and musical notation with American Sign Language. Her compositions uniquely address her experience as a Deaf individual in a hearing-centric society and broader societal influences on whose voices hold sway.
    Kim’s mural investigates "ghost notes," musical symbols that indicate a slight sound without a specific pitch, almost like silence, but with rhythmic presence. In this work, the artist uses musical notation to explore being "ghosted," where communication suddenly halts without explanation. Kim's four-line staff, rather than the five-line standard in musical notation, echoes her sign for the word and challenges exclusionary dynamics in social spaces.
    Her mural prompts viewers to contemplate the resulting score, marked by tangible gaps and notes beyond audibility. It serves as a commentary on accessibility, ableist exclusion, and agency through refusal, urging reflection on who or what we omit and its impact on communication and connection.

    Meet the Artist: Christine Sun Kim will be at Town Hall Seattle on April 30, 2025, to discuss her wide-ranging practice. Learn more here.

    Artist Bio

    Christine Sun Kim is an American artist based in Berlin. Kim's practice considers how sound operates in society, deconstructing the politics of sound and exploring how oral languages operate as social currency. Kim has exhibited and performed internationally, including at the Gwangju Biennale (2023); Secession, Vienna (2023); Queens Museum, New York (2022); the Drawing Center, New York (2022); the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2021); Manchester International Festival, Manchester (2021); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (2020); Whitney Biennial, New York (2019); Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo (2019); Art Institute of Chicago (2018); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2017); De Appel Arts Center, Amsterdam (2017); Berlin Biennale (2016); Shanghai Biennale (2016); MoMA PS1, New York (2015) and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013), among numerous others. Kim’s awards and fellowships include an MIT Media Lab Fellowship, a United States Artists fellowship, a Ford and Mellon Foundations’ Disabilities Future Fellowship, and the Prix International d’Art Contemporain of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco. Her works are held in numerous prominent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, LACMA, Tate Britain, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.
    CREDITS

    Christine Sun Kim: Ghost(ed) Notes is organized by Nina Bozicnik, Senior Curator, with Em Chan, Curatorial Assistant. Generous support is provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.

    Exhibitions at the Henry are made possible through the generous support of our annual sponsors, 4Culture and ArtsFund.

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