Image: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Christine Sun Kim, the artist behind this year’s “MMCA × LG OLED Series 2026” commission at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, has been named a 2026 MacArthur Fellow. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced the award on 29 September, and the museum marked the news in a post to its followers.
The fellowships are awarded by the Chicago-based foundation to people working across the arts, sciences and humanities in recognition of exceptional creativity and potential. In its profile of Kim, the foundation describes her as an artist who examines the political, cultural and multisensory aspects of sound, spoken language and communication.
Kim, who is 46 and based in Berlin, works across drawing, large-scale murals, video and interactive installations. Her practice draws on formats such as infographics and musical notation, and she frequently works in charcoal and oil pastel. Works cited by the foundation include “Game of Skill 2.0” (2015), the drawing series “Degrees of Deaf Rage” (2018–19), “Prolonged Echo” (2023) and “Ghost(ed) Notes” (2024).
She studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology, graduating in 2002, and went on to earn master’s degrees from the School of Visual Arts in 2006 and Bard College in 2013. Her work has been shown at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Secession in Vienna, as well as at the MMCA in Seoul.
Kim is represented by François Ghebaly Gallery, Gallery Hyundai and White Space Gallery, according to the foundation’s profile.
