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Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

  • Exhibitions
    • Current
    • Upcoming
    • Past
  • Calendar
  • Learning
    • Artist Residency
    • Bookshelf Residency
    • Digital Projects
    • Public Programs
    • Schools & Community
    • Special Projects
  • Visit
  • About
    • Staff
    • Governance
    • Press
    • Partnerships
    • Opportunities
    • Annual Report
  • Shop
  • Get Involved
    • Incognito
    • Patron Groups
    • Institutional Support
    • Artist Edition Series
    • Sustainability
    • Corporate
  • Donate
Yellow Pages
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Back To Exhibitions
February 11
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January 14, 2024
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Back To Exhibitions
February 11
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January 14, 2024

Christine Sun Kim: Bounce Back

Outdoor Projects
Icala 2023 02 14 001
5 Images

ICA LA is pleased to present a new large-scale mural commissioned for the museum’s façade by the Berlin-based American artist Christine Sun Kim (b. 1980, Orange County, CA). Working across the mediums of drawing, performance, experimental sound, video, and large-scale murals, Kim’s work engages with the limits and possibilities of language—be it spoken, signed, or scripted. Often referencing musical scores, infographics, and emojis, her singular visual lexicon brings together sarcastic humor and incisive critique to illuminate the systems of power and ideology embedded in oral communications and investigate the complex realities of Deaf culture.

Titled Bounce Back (2023), this new site-specific mural builds on Kim’s recent body of work that focuses on debt—signed in ASL by one index finger tapping the open palm of the other. Depending on elements such as the directionality of the open palm, the force of the finger’s impact, and other non-manual cues like facial and bodily expression, one sign can carry multiple meanings. In this case, the word for “debt” can take on various nuances that indicate the type, severity, or urgency of the debt, or even allow the sign to slip into adjacent meanings like “owe” or “afford.” Creating her own kind of ASL notation, Kim makes reference to the tapping finger through the traces of its movements, incorporating into the drawing a double bouncing line reminiscent of those used in old cartoons or comic books to indicate motion. Moving from hand to hand, the bouncing lines underscore the relational aspect of debt, asking the viewer to examine what exactly is owed? And to whom? Offering a poignant meditation on systemic inequity and shared experience under debt, Kim’s mural asks us to consider our collective responsibility in contributing to the layers of financial, historical, social, and emotional debt that structure and define everyday life.

Images
Icala 2023 02 14 001
Icala 2023 02 14 011
Icala 2023 02 14 012
Icala 2023 03 09 011
icon/arrow copy Created with Sketch.
icon/arrow copy Created with Sketch.
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Installation view, Christine Sun Kim: Bounce Back, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, February 11–September 15, 2023. Photo: Jeff McLane/ICA LA
Resources
Credits & Sponsors
About the Artist
Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Deaf Culture Tip Sheet
Hands & Voices Deaf Culture and Community
The ASL App Deaf Culture FAQ
Deaf Power (co-founded by Christine) Resources Page

Christine Sun Kim: Bounce Back is organized by Amanda Sroka, Senior Curator, with Caroline Ellen Liou, Curatorial Assistant.

Commissioned by Palatine Capital Partners through the LA County Department of Arts and Culture Public Art in Private Development program.

ICA LA is supported by the Curator’s Council and Fieldwork Council.

Christine Sun Kim (b. 1980, Orange County, CA) 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. Musical notation, written language, infographics, American Sign Language (ASL), the use of the body, and strategically deployed humor are all recurring elements in her practice. Working across drawing, performance, video and large-scale murals, Kim explores her relationship to spoken languages, to her built and social environments, and to the world at large. Kim has exhibited and performed internationally, including at the Queens Museum, New York (2022); the Drawing Center, New York (2022); the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2021); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (2020); Whitney Biennial, New York (2019); Art Institute of Chicago (2018); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2017); Berlin Biennale (2016); Shanghai Biennale (2016); and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013), among others, with works held in numerous prominent collections. Kim is an inaugural awardee of the Ford and Mellon Foundations’ Disabilities Future Fellowship, a TED Senior Fellowship, an MIT Media Lab Fellowship, and the 2022 Prix International d’Art Contemporain of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco. She is represented by François Ghebaly, Los Angeles and White Space Beijing.

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Database Exhibitions
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STATUS ID Title Start date End date Featured image Last updated
Active Published
133 Scratching at the Moon 2024-02-10 2024-05-12
Na Mira, <i>TETRAPHOBIA</i>, 2022, installation view, <i>Subrosa</i>, MOCA Tucson, 2023. Photograph by Maya Hawk, copyright © MOCA Tucson, 2023
10:15am Aug 28, 2023 Page
Active Published
132 Barbara T. Smith: Proof 2023-10-07 2024-01-14
Smith proof 1965 66
1:10pm Oct 03, 2023 Page
Active Published
134 Infinite Rehearsal with Chris Emile and No)one. Art House 2023-10-07 2024-01-14
Infinite rehearsal website shot
1:12pm Oct 03, 2023 Page
Active Published
135 Data (beta): the labor of looking 2023-10-07 2024-01-14
Annex installation 2023 aoa
4:35pm Sep 27, 2023 Page
Active Published
129 Trương Công Tùng 2023-06-10 2023-09-10
Tct 1
1:34pm Sep 13, 2023 Page
Active Published
130 Carmen Argote: I won’t abandon you, I see you, we are safe 2023-06-10 2023-09-10
Icala 2023 06 12 042
2:40pm Aug 17, 2023 Page
Active Published
131 Alberta Whittle: between a whisper and a cry 2023-06-10 2023-09-10
Aw 1
10:44am Jul 29, 2023 Page
Active Published
126 Milford Graves: Fundamental Frequency 2023-02-11 2023-05-14
Icala 2023 02 14 039
10:40am May 09, 2023 Page
Active Published
127 Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork 2023-02-11 2023-05-14
Icala 001
1:14pm May 04, 2023 Page
Active Published
128 Christine Sun Kim: Bounce Back 2023-02-11 2024-01-14
Icala 2023 02 14 001
1:32pm Aug 21, 2023 Page
Active Published
91 Rebecca Morris: 2001–2022 2022-10-01 2023-01-15
Image of exhibition introduction text, Rebecca Morris painting hands in the background.
12:32pm Nov 16, 2022 Page
Active Published
92 My Barbarian 2022-10-01 2023-01-15
Icala 2022 10 06 004
4:57pm Nov 08, 2022 Page
Active Published
90 The Condition of Being Addressable 2022-06-18 2022-09-04
Icala 06.20.220449 edit
12:07pm Aug 04, 2022 Page
Active Published
125 Aquelarre no binario / Non-binary coven 2022-06-08 2023-01-15
View of ICA LA courtyard mural by Ad Minoliti featuring four vertical panels, each filled with abstracted representations of figures in vivid reds, yellows, oranges, purples, and pinks.
9:13pm Jan 19, 2023 Page
Active Published
87 Jamal Cyrus: The End of My Beginning 2022-02-05 2022-05-29
Installation view, "Jamal Cyrus: The End of My Beginning," Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, February 5–May 29, 2022. Photo: Jeff McLane/ICA LA
12:18pm Jul 06, 2022 Page
Active Published
88 Sara Cwynar: Apple Red/Grass Green/Sky Blue 2022-02-05 2022-05-29
Sara Cwynar, "Glass Life," 2021. Six channel 2K video with sound, TRT: 19:02 min. Courtesy the artist; The Approach, London; Cooper Cole, Toronto; and Foxy Production, New York. Installation view, "Sara Cwynar: Apple Red/Grass Green/Sky Blue," Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, February 5–May 29, 2022. Photo: Jeff McLane/ICA LA
5:53pm May 03, 2022 Page
Active Published
83 Witch Hunt 2021-10-10 2022-01-09
Installation view of Witch Hunt, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, October 10–January 9, 2022.
11:51am Apr 01, 2022 Page
Active Published
89 Minerva Cuevas: Female Earth 2021-10-10 2022-06-02
Icala witchhunt 2021 10 12 077 (1)
10:47am May 24, 2022 Page
Active Published
81 Queer Communion:
Ron Athey
2021-06-19 2021-09-05
Icala 2021 07 02 009
10:15pm Sep 01, 2021 Page
Active Published
82 Kenneth Tam:
Silent Spikes
2021-06-19 2021-09-05
Icala 2021 07 02 002
11:12am Aug 03, 2021 Page
Active Published
80 The Inconstant World 2021-03-06 2021-05-30
Tiw horvitz
9:42am Dec 22, 2021 Page
Active Published
79 Online Screening: Stanya Kahn’s No Go Backs and Earlier Works 2020-12-09 2021-01-10
Sk1b
4:13pm Jan 22, 2021 Page
Active Published
77 Harold Mendez:
Let us gather in a flourishing way
2020-09-26 2021-01-10
Icala 2020 10 05 014
3:17pm Feb 07, 2022 Page
Active Published
78 Stanya Kahn:
No Go Backs
2020-09-26 2021-01-10
Sk1a
6:46pm Dec 04, 2020 Page
Active Published
69 Ree Morton:
The Plant That Heals May Also Poison
2020-02-16 2020-07-19
Icala 2020 03 06 025
1:06pm Jan 18, 2022 Page
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