Byron Kim (American, born 1961). <em>Sunday Painting 2/18/07</em>, 2007. Acrylic and gouache on canvas, mounted on panel, 14 × 14 in. (35.6 × 35.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Contemporary Art Council in honor of Eugenie Tsai and Patrick Amsellem, 2011.37.1. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Image courtesy of James Cohan Gallery, CUR.2011.37.1_James_Cohan_Gallery_photo.jpg)

Byron Kim (American, born 1961). Sunday Painting 2/18/07, 2007. Acrylic and gouache on canvas, mounted on panel, 14 × 14 in. (35.6 × 35.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Contemporary Art Council in honor of Eugenie Tsai and Patrick Amsellem, 2011.37.1. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Image courtesy of James Cohan Gallery, CUR.2011.37.1_James_Cohan_Gallery_photo.jpg)

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Download our app and ask your own questions during your visit. Here are some that others have asked.

Are all of Byron Kim's paintings "diaries" like these works?

Not all of his works, no. This particular series, which is still ongoing, has a diary-like feel. Many of Kim's works do focus on the intersection of the personal and the language of Modernism.

How old is the artist?

As of 2017, Byron Kim is 56 years old.

Tell me more.

These paintings were produced by the artist Byron Kim. Each week, on Sunday, the artist paints the sky and writes down his feelings, thoughts, and life events for that week or day. He paints the sky accompanied specifically by observations for the day, usually pertaining to his family. In this way there is a micro-macrocosmic aspect to his work. Having completed over 500 paintings to date, Kim plans to continue the series until the end of his life. The paintings have an almost cinematic quality to them, establishing a personal narrative.

These are so expressive.

Since the winter of 2001, the artist of these works, Byron Kim, has produced these Sunday paintings. Each week, he renders the sky and writes down his feelings, thoughts, and life events for that week or day.

Kim plans to continue the series until the end of his life, having completed over 500 works in the series to date!

These works play with the existential, showing a personal narrative being subsumed by the sky. They also explore the impossibility of capturing the vastness of the sky in one painting.

Is the artist trying to capture the sky exactly as he sees it?

I know that his works are metaphorical in a sense, but in the process of creating the painting does the artist experience any difficulties trying to specifically portray the sky, since the sky is always moving and it does not stay constantly the same.

Great question. I think so but more than anything I get the feeling that it's an impression because, as you mentioned in your last message, the sky and clouds are constantly moving.

Perhaps he is playing with this idea of permanence vs transience. Kim doesn't read the paintings after he completes them. They are snapshots of fleeting moments in time.

Sunday Painting 2/18/07

Byron Kim

Contemporary Art

On View:

Each Sunday for the last two decades, Byron Kim has painted a single view of the sky, overlaid with written ruminations from the day. Kim captures the ever-changing formations and shades of blues, grays, and wispy whites in quick, vigorous brushstrokes, treating the canvas as if it were a window or a skylight. The flat passages of diaristic text insert the artist’s daily experiences onto this shared backdrop of human experience. Through this weekly routine, Kim connects the seemingly ordinary moments of life to a fuller, cosmic sense of time.

ARTIST Byron Kim, American, born 1961

MEDIUM Acrylic and gouache on canvas, mounted on panel

DATES 2007

DIMENSIONS 14 × 14 in. (35.6 × 35.6 cm) frame: 14 3/4 × 14 3/4 × 3 in. (37.5 × 37.5 × 7.6 cm) (show scale)

COLLECTIONS Contemporary Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 2011.37.1

CREDIT LINE Gift of the Contemporary Art Council in honor of Eugenie Tsai and Patrick Amsellem

EXHIBITIONS

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view

CAPTION Byron Kim (American, born 1961). Sunday Painting 2/18/07, 2007. Acrylic and gouache on canvas, mounted on panel, 14 × 14 in. (35.6 × 35.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Contemporary Art Council in honor of Eugenie Tsai and Patrick Amsellem, 2011.37.1. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Image courtesy of James Cohan Gallery, CUR.2011.37.1_James_Cohan_Gallery_photo.jpg)

IMAGE overall, CUR.2011.37.1_James_Cohan_Gallery_photo.jpg. Image courtesy of James Cohan Gallery

"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.

RIGHTS STATEMENT © Byron Kim/ Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York/SHANGHAI

The Brooklyn Museum holds a non-exclusive license to reproduce images of this work of art from the rights holder named here. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org. If you wish to contact the rights holder for this work, please email copyright@brooklynmuseum.org and we will assist if we can.

RECORD COMPLETENESS

Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.

Download our app and ask your own questions during your visit. Here are some that others have asked.

Are all of Byron Kim's paintings "diaries" like these works?

Not all of his works, no. This particular series, which is still ongoing, has a diary-like feel. Many of Kim's works do focus on the intersection of the personal and the language of Modernism.

How old is the artist?

As of 2017, Byron Kim is 56 years old.

Tell me more.

These are so expressive.

Kim plans to continue the series until the end of his life, having completed over 500 works in the series to date!

These works play with the existential, showing a personal narrative being subsumed by the sky. They also explore the impossibility of capturing the vastness of the sky in one painting.

Is the artist trying to capture the sky exactly as he sees it?

Great question. I think so but more than anything I get the feeling that it's an impression because, as you mentioned in your last message, the sky and clouds are constantly moving.

Perhaps he is playing with this idea of permanence vs transience. Kim doesn't read the paintings after he completes them. They are snapshots of fleeting moments in time.

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Sunday Painting 2/18/07

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Contemporary Art

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