Christine Y. Kim

Christine Y. Kim is an American curator of contemporary art. She is currently the Britton Family Curator-at-Large at Tate. Prior to this post, Kim held the position of Curator of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Before her appointment at LACMA in 2009, she was Associate Curator at The Studio Museum in Harlem in New York. She is best known for her exhibitions of and publications on artists of color, diasporic and marginalized discourses, and 21st-century technology and artistic practices.

In 2021, ARTnews described her as "one of the most closely watched curators in the U.S."

Early life Kim, a Korean American, was born in Newport Beach and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.

She attended Connecticut College, where she studied art history. While there, she became close friends with future fashion designer Peter Som.

Career Kim's first museum job after graduate school was in the bookstore at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1999. She was quickly hired as a writer in the Education Department, contributing research and texts on artists and works of art in the permanent collection for The American Century where she met other aspiring young curators and writers focusing on works of art by artists of color such as Franklin Sirmans and Lisa Dent.

In 2000, following the appointments of Lowery Stokes Sims and Thelma Golden as Director and deputy director for Exhibitions and Programs, respectively, at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Kim was hired as a curatorial assistant and later promoted to assistant curator and associate curator. Kim organized the exhibition Freestyle (2000) popularizing the term "post-black art" and featuring work by artists such as Mark Bradford, Jennie C. Jones, Dave McKenzie, and Julie Mehretu. In 2003, she organized Black Belt, an exhibition that featured works by Black and, for the first time in the museum's history, Asian American artists such as Sanford Biggers, Patty Chang, Ellen Gallagher, David Hammons, Arthur Jafa, and Glenn Kaino, and their musing on cross cultural connections and hybridities growing out of 1970s popular culture. Art reviewer Roberta Smith praised the show for its recognition of "the increasingly blurred lines of racial difference" but also criticized the show as "simplistic" and mired in "artistic academicism and literal-mindedness". In 2007, Kim organized Henry Taylor: Sis and Bra, the artist's first solo museum exhibition.

Later, Kim presented exhibitions such as Kehinde Wiley: World Stage Lagos - Dakar (2008) and Flow (2008), referred to as the "African 'F' show" featuring work by artists from Africa such as Latifa Echakhch, Nicholas Hlobo, Otobong Nkanga, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at the Studio Museum. She also co-founded the Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND) a non-profit committed to temporary, site-specific public art exhibitions with curator Shamim M. Momin. where she became "a force within the city art scene". Her exhibitions included James Turell: A Retrospective (2013–14), co-curated with Govan, which won first place for the Best Monographic Museum Exhibition in the U.S. by the International Art Critics Association (AICA-USA), and was presented concurrent with major solo presentations of Turrell's work at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH); Human Nature: Contemporary Art from the Collection (2011), co-curated with Franklin Sirmans; Isaac Julien: Playtime (2019) that marked the artist's first major presentation in Los Angeles; and Julie Mehretu (2019-2021), a mid-career survey curated with Rujeko Hockley, which traveled to the High Museum of Art, Atlanta and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. In 2019, Kim was promoted to full curator at LACMA.

In 2021, Kim was hired as a curator-at-large for the Tate museum network.

Personal life Kim married actor and comedian David Alan Grier in July 2007. The couple welcomed their daughter, Luisa Danbi Grier-Kim, in 2008, but divorced in July 2009.

Kim later remarried Dr. Kevin Gruenberg, clinical psychologist and the co-founder and Executive Director of Love, Dad: Support for Fathers and Families. She resides in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

List of exhibitions

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Black American Portraits co-curated with Liz Andrews, 2021 Julie Mehretu,* 2019 - 2021 co-organized with the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2020; traveling to the High Museum of Art, Atlanta 2020–21; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2021 Isaac Julien: Playtime, 2019 Frances Stark: The Magic Flute, 2017 Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination,* 2015 co-curated with Lynne Cooke; toured Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2016–17 My Barbarian: Double Agency, co-curated with Rita Gonzalez, 2015 James Turrell: A Retrospective,* 2013-15 co-curated with Michael Govan in conjunction with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York; toured National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2014 and The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2014–15 Figure and Form in Contemporary Photography: Selections from the Permanent Collection, 2012 Christian Marclay: The Clock, 2011, 2012, 2015 Human Nature: Selections from the Permanent Collection, 2011 Teresa Margolles in collaboration with Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), 2010–11

The Studio Museum in Harlem

Kehinde Wiley: World Stage Africa, Lagos – Dakar,* 2008 Flow* 2008 Odili Donald Odita: Equalizer, 2008 Portraits, Landscapes and Abstractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem Permanent Collection at City Hall,* Hon. Michael Bloomberg, 2007–09 Midnight’s Daydream: Artists-in-Residence,* 2007 Henry Taylor: Sis and Bra, 2007 Philosophy of Time Travel,* 2007 Collection in Context: Silhouette, 2007 Quid Pro Quo: Artists-in-Residence,* 2006 Nadine Robinson: Alles Grau,* 2006 Frequency,* 2005 Collection in Context: Selections from the Permanent Collection, 2005 Meschac Gaba: Tresses,* 2005 Scratch: Artists-in-Residence,* 2005 Lamar Peterson: Picture in a Picture, 2005 Figuratively* 2004 Veni Vidi Video II, 2004 Hands On, Hands Down: Artists-in-Residence,* 2003 Black Belt,* 2003. Veni Vidi Video, 2003 Collection in Context: Selections from the Permanent Collection, 2002 Ironic Iconic: Artists-in-Residence,* 2002 Edgar Arceneaux: Drawings of Removal, 2002 Africaine, 2001 Freestyle,* 2001 John Bankston: Capture and Escape of Mr. M, Ch. 1, 2001 Harlem Postcards (ongoing seasonal project), 2002 – 2007