The PIAC – International Contemporary Art Award 2022, organized by Prince Pierre Foundation of Monacohas been attributed to Christine Sun Kim for his performance The Star-Spangled Banner (2020). The PIAC, endowed with a sum of 75 thousand euros, was delivered on 11 October during the proclamation ceremony held at the Opéra Garnier in Monte Carlo. Nominated by the artist David Horvitz part of the Art Council, Kim was in contention with Nguyen Trinh Thi for the movie How to make the world better (2020), appointed in turn by Zoe Butt.
The artistic council, whose direction has been entrusted to Cristiano Raimondiis made up of art critics, curators, researchers, collectors or artists. Rosa Beard (2016), Margherita Manzelli (2000) or Lorenzo Cardi (1997), were among the winners of this triennial award, organized by the Prince Pierre Foundation of Monaco since 1983 which has been chaired by the Princess of Hanover since 1988.
Created in 1966 by Prince Rainier III in homage to his father, patron of Letters and the Arts, the Prince Pierre Foundation aims to promote contemporary creation not only in the artistic field but also in the literary, musical, philosophical and research fields. This research grant, which supports work in relation to the Mediterranean basin, was awarded to the duo DAAR or Decolonizing Architecture Art Residencyconsisting of Sandi Hilal and from Italian Alessandro Pettiwhose artistic practice is placed between architecture, art, pedagogy and politics.
PIAC winner Christine Sun Kim (1980, Orange County, California, lives in Berlin) is a very talented performer, a deaf artist, who in her works, such as videos and drawings, challenges the idea that sound is an exclusively auditory experience. In developing her personal visual language, the artist draws on American Sign Language (ASL) as well as a variety of information systems, body language as well as musical and graphic notation. She also investigates the practice of how sound operates in the auditory society, overturning the perception of sound out of social diktats.
Christine Sun Kim at Super Bowl LIV in 2020 in collaboration with Beth Staehle, an outstanding ASL performer, has stunningly performed The Star-Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful. It should be emphasized that the day following the event, the artist expresses, in an article published in the New York Times, his frustration to know that his performance in sign language, broadcast in real time on the giant screens of the stadium, had a decidedly truncated version for those watching on televisions, computers and phones.
There are several of his resonant works of art, among these we find If sign language was considered equal, we’d already be friends, written on a large London wall. In Rewrites Closed Captions (video, 2015), Christine Sun Kim explores the ways of communicating subtitles for the deaf, stating, with humor and creativity, that the caption does not express what sound is made of, how it moves, or her personality. An absence that fills by suggesting new poetic and revealing descriptions giving a deeper meaning to the noises of our daily life. A work that reverses the traditional dynamics of power between the auditory media and the deaf public. Her art of hers reveals unexpected multiple dimensions of sound with unexpected originality, while battling systems of oppression.
The other PIAC finalist, Nguyen Trinh Thi (1973, Hanoi, Vietnam), director and documentary maker, is a pioneer of the moving image in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Her practice embraces film, photography, installation and performance. In How to Improve the World (2021, 47m minutes, Single-channel HD video, color, stereo) takes us among the people Jrai in the central highlands of Vietnam, in the province of Gia Lai. Nguyen Trinh Thi here pays particular attention to soundscapes, emphasizing the contrast between spiritual rituals and smartphone obsessions, as well as the cultural dominance of images at the expense of other sensory modalities such as hearing.
To find out more about the PIAC we chatted with the artistic director, Cristiano Raimondi.
Can you tell us about your career path?
«I have lived in Monaco since 2009 where I was called by Marie Claude Beaud as curator and responsible for the development of what would become the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco. In 2020 I resigned to be able to carry out more personal projects and help Silvia Fiorucci in the creation of the Society of Bees, a multidisciplinary Hub with a program of residences and exhibitions in Monaco, in Greece in Kastellorizo, and in France in Grasse ».
How did you react to the appointment of PIAC artistic director?
«I had just made an exhibition on ceramics in Munich at the Museum, as an invited curator, when the news reached me. Certainly with gratitude and a strong sense of responsibility, due to the respect I have for this prestigious award, and at the same time characterized by an attitude of great discretion and seriousness. I was very afraid solely of the unknowns that Covid would bring to the conduct of the meetings with the artistic council that I had in mind to put together “.
How does the PIAC fit into the international contemporary art scene?
«The PIAC is a well-known historical prize in France for literature and music. Contemporary art, especially in the last fifteen years thanks to the formidable joint work of the Princess of Hanover, Jean-Louis Froment, first artistic director of the Foundation, and Marie Claude Beaud, vice president of the award, has acquired importance. For the past ten years my predecessors have been Abdellah Karroum And Lorenzo Fusiwith awards given to Dora Garcia, Rosa Beard And Arthur Jafa of which we even anticipated the Golden Lion received for the 2019 Biennale ».
How is the PIAC organized and what is its goal?
«The PIAC has the sole objectives of supporting and celebrating the artists together with the dissemination of its important history. The jury is organized with a pyramid structure, each councilor asks three nominators for the name of an artist and a work created by them, in the last two years, before the council. So with a board made up of seven counselors – Chus Martinez, Manuel Cirauqui, Barbara Casavecchia, Claire Hoffmann, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Petrit Halilaj, Mouna Mekouar – we had 21 proposals to be evaluated in several sessions ».
Is there a theme that unites the works of Christine Sun Kim and Nguyen Trinh Thi, the two PIAC finalists?
“Look, no. Absurdly we had a short list of only two names, and they were the ones who had received the most votes in the last sessions of the jury. There was no strategy, as far as the 10 thousand euro research grant given to DAAR is concerned, there was my desire to favor research and research artists who had done a work or study relating to issues related to the Mediterranean basin. Surely in the last 10 years, artist’s videos or films are those that in the end have always prevailed over other more secular practices ».
What do you think of the work of Christine Sun Kim, the winner of the PIAC?
«I think it is extraordinary to have given the prize to an artist who has built an artistic language starting from what could generally be a limit, but which has turned out to be the ‘echo’ of a unique and original artistic practice».
Does your adventure with the PIAC continue or does it end with this edition?
“I’ll be artistic director until next year, then we’ll see.”
Future projects?
«The Christine Sun Kim exhibition will be organized in Madrid by the Prince Pierre Foundation in collaboration with the Casa Encendida in Madrid, which will open on 10 November and will remain until the end of the Arco fair. An exhibition at the Brazilian embassy in Rome on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of the well-known artist Rubem Valentim, which will open on November 17th. Finally, in our exhibition space of the Bee Society in Munich, called Le Quaion December 17th an exhibition with the works of Nathalie Djuberg, Lin May Saeed, Haris Epaminonda, Anna Franceschini, AD Minoliti And Zoe Leonard“.
PIAC 2022 pays homage to Christine Sun Kim’s poetic and challenging art