Artist Christine Sun Kim to Deliver Walter Annenberg Lecture on March 13

Installation view of Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 8-July 6, 2025). From left to right: Christine Sun Kim, Ghost(ed) Notes, 2024; Christine Sun Kim, All Day All Night, 2023. Photograph by David Tufino

Christine Sun Kim returns to the Whitney Museum for a special week of programming inspired by her first major museum survey Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night.

The Whitney Museum of American Art announces that artist Christine Sun Kim will present the 2025 Walter Annenberg Lecture on Thursday, March 13, at 6:30 pm in the Museum’s Susan and John Hess Family Theater and live streamed on the Whitney’s YouTube channel. The Walter Annenberg Lecture coincides with a special week of programming with Kim, whose first major museum survey, Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night, is currently on view at the Whitney through July 6, 2025.

For this Walter Annenberg Lecture, Kim presents “Deaf Death,” a lecture-performance that explores the tendency for text programs to autocorrect the word “deaf” to “death.” Using images and incisive commentary, Kim questions both what defines disability, and how different definitions reflect fears and hopes for the future. The artist and Scott Rothkopf, the Whitney’s Alice Pratt Brown Director, will engage in a conversation following the presentation.

This annual lecture is given in honor of the late Walter H. Annenberg, philanthropist, patron of the arts, and former ambassador. Past Annenberg Lecture participants include Nancy Baker Cahill (2024), Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (2023), Dawoud Bey (2021), Julie Mehretu (2020, presented spring 2021), Jason Moran (2019), Kara Walker (2018), Catherine Opie (2017), Martha Rosler (2016), and Frank Stella (2015).

In addition to the lecture, Kim will participate in a week of programming in conjunction with Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night. On Saturday, March 8, Kim will join Whitney Signs, an ongoing program that offers tours in American Sign Language (ASL) led by Deaf educators. She will also lead an artmaking project for visitors of all ages on Free Second Sunday on Sunday, March 9 and a Teen Open Studio on Friday, March 14.

This week of programming marks a return to the Whitney for Kim, where she began her career and has maintained a long-standing relationship. Between 2007 and 2014, Kim was an educator, and later, a consultant, for the Museum, where she helped to establish Whitney Signs and ASL-led vlogs. She returned to the Whitney in 2018 to present the public art installation Too Much Future, and in 2019, she was featured in the Whitney Biennial.

“For me, having started at the Whitney as an educator and coming back as an artist, it’s a full circle moment,” Kim said.

Kim is an artist who works with sound, language, and the complexities of communication in her wide ranging approach to artmaking. She uses musical notation, infographics, and language—both in her native American Sign Language (ASL) and written English—to create drawings, site-specific murals, paintings, video installations, and sculptures. In her artwork, activism, and public voice, Kim confronts the systemic marginalization of the Deaf community and subordination of access while celebrating the importance of community and family.

Program Details

Whitney Signs: Christine Sun Kim

Saturday, March 8

3:30–6 pm

Join us for an in-person tour of Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night led by two Deaf educators, Joyce Hom and Gina Marciona, in American Sign Language (ASL). The event begins with a tour at 3:30 pm and will be followed by a Q&A and reception with artist Christine Sun Kim, who helped to start the Whitney Signs program in 2007. This tour will not have voice interpretation.

Location: Meet in the lobby

Event link: whitney.org/events/whitney-signs-csk

Free Second Sunday

Sunday, March 9

11 am–4 pm

Visitors of all ages are invited to join artist Christine Sun Kim for an artmaking project inspired by her exhibition Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night on Free Second Sunday. ASL interpreters and Deaf educators will be present.

Location: Floor 3, Artspace

Event link: whitney.org/visit/second-sundays

Walter Annenberg Lecture: Christine Sun Kim: Deaf Death

Thursday, March 13

6:30 pm

For this Walter Annenberg Lecture, Kim presents “Deaf Death,” a lecture-performance that explores the tendency for text programs to autocorrect the word “deaf” to “death.” Using images and incisive commentary, Kim questions both what defines disability, and how different definitions reflect fears and hopes for the future. A conversation between Kim and Scott Rothkopf, the Whitney’s Alice Pratt Brown Director, follows the presentation. Audiences can register for the Zoom livestream on whitney.org.

Location: Floor 3, Hess Theater and online, via Zoom

Event link: whitney.org/events/walter-annenberg-lecture

Open Studio for Teens with Artist Christine Sun Kim

Friday, March 14

4–6 pm

Teens are invited to join artist Christine Sun Kim in a special Open Studio for Teens, a free artmaking program held on select Fridays at the Whitney. Teens will experiment with combining visual art and language to create their own poetic, humorous, and thought-provoking artwork while learning how art can be a powerful way to share personal experiences and engage with others. Free for teens, and no prior art experience is needed—everyone is welcome.

Location: Floor 3, Artspace

Event link: whitney.org/events/open-studio-christine-sun-kim

ASL Exhibition Tour (with voice interpretation): Christine Sun Kim

Friday, February 14 and March 14 at 7 pm

Friday, April 11, May 9, June 13 at 6 pm

On Free Friday Nights, join us for a 30-minute ASL tour of Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night led by Deaf educators Joyce Hom and Gina Marciona. An ASL interpreter will be present to provide voice interpretation.

Location: Floor 8

Event links: whitney.org/events/csk-asl-tour-voice-1, whitney.org/events/csk-asl-tour-voice-2

About Christine Sun Kim

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. 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 and signed languages, to her built and social environments, and to the world at large.

WALTER ANNENBERG LECTURE

In honor of the late Walter H. Annenberg—philanthropist, patron of the arts, and former ambassador—the Whitney Museum of American Art established the Walter Annenberg Annual Lecture to advance this country’s understanding of its art and culture. Support for this lecture and for public programs at the Whitney Museum is provided, in part, by GRoW @ Annenberg, a philanthropic initiative led by Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, Vice President and Director of the Annenberg Foundation, and by members of the Whitney’s Education Committee.

ABOUT THE WHITNEY

The Whitney Museum of American Art, founded in 1930 by the artist and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), houses the foremost collection of American art from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Mrs. Whitney, an early and ardent supporter of modern American art, nurtured groundbreaking artists when audiences were still largely preoccupied with the Old Masters. From her vision arose the Whitney Museum of American Art, which has been championing the most innovative art of the United States for ninety years. The core of the Whitney’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret, and exhibit American art of our time and serve a wide variety of audiences in celebration of the complexity and diversity of art and culture in the United States. Through this mission and a steadfast commitment to artists, the Whitney has long been a powerful force in support of modern and contemporary art and continues to help define what is innovative and influential in American art today.

Whitney Museum Land Acknowledgment

The Whitney is located in Lenapehoking, the ancestral homeland of the Lenape. The name Manhattan comes from their word Mannahatta, meaning “island of many hills.” The Museum’s current site is close to land that was a Lenape fishing and planting site called Sapponckanikan (“tobacco field”). The Whitney acknowledges the displacement of this region’s original inhabitants and the Lenape diaspora that exists today.

As a museum of American art in a city with vital and diverse communities of Indigenous people, the Whitney recognizes the historical exclusion of Indigenous artists from its collection and program. The Museum is committed to addressing these erasures and honoring the perspectives of Indigenous artists and communities as we work for a more equitable future. To read more about the Museum’s Land Acknowledgment, visit the Museum’s website.

MUSEUM VISITOR INFORMATION

The Whitney Museum of American Art is located at 99 Gansevoort Street between Washington and West Streets, New York City. Public hours are: Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 10:30 am–6 pm; Friday, 10:30 am–10 pm; and Saturday and Sunday, 11 am–6 pm. Closed Tuesday. Member-only hours are: Saturday and Sunday, 10:30–11 am. Visitors twenty-five years and under and Whitney members: FREE. The Museum offers FREE admission and special programming for visitors of all ages every Friday evening from 5–10 pm and on the second Sunday of every month.