Artist Christine Sun Kim / Courtesy of Iga Drobisz
Korean American artist Christine Sun Kim has been selected as this year’s invited creator for “MMCA X LG OLED,” an exhibition series launched by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), in partnership with LG Electronics.
Introduced last year, the annual initiative highlights contemporary visual experiments that push and expand the language of media in today’s ever-evolving digital landscape. Each edition invites one artist or collective to produce a large-scale, site-specific installation for Seoul Box, MMCA Seoul’s open exhibition space defined by its 14-meter-high ceilings.
Drawing on her lived experience as a Deaf artist navigating a hearing-centered world, Kim explores sound not as a purely acoustic phenomenon but as a socially constructed system shaped by power and access. Working through the body, American Sign Language (ASL) and graphic notation, she reveals how meaning is transmitted and often distorted across different systems of communication.
For her Seoul Box presentation, the artist is set to unveil a large-scale animated video installation. At its center is a monumental screen that visualizes ASL through a graphic notation system she developed herself, borrowing the dynamic motion lines of classic cartoons and comic books.
In the new piece, Kim captures the sensation of confrontation reflecting today’s polarized political and social climate, intensified by online platforms where exchanges repeat and rarely resolve. The work evokes what she has described as “the sensation of arguing with a rock,” a cycle of expression met with little potential for change.
“Her works propose a clear thematic inquiry into the relationship between language and society in a way that is both amusing and open to multilayered interpretation,” MMCA Director Kim Sung-hee noted. “This project will mark an important turning point in the artist’s expansion into the medium of digital animation.”
Opening July 31, Kim’s show will be among several major presentations at MMCA Seoul coinciding with the buzz of Seoul Art Week in September.
The artist is also scheduled to hold a solo exhibition at Gallery Hyundai in the fall.
Source: Korea Times News
