The DOOSAN Curator Workshop 2013 invited Sungwon Kim to speak at its 3rd workshop on July 17, 2013. The Workshop participants had the opportunity to listen to her candid opinions and insights with regard to her curatorial practice and various exhibition curating experiences. 
 
1) Thoughts on Exhibition Curating 
Curator Sungwon Kim stated that she prefers for a curating concept to emerge spontaneously from an artist’s artworks, rather than for a curator to presuppose a theoretical application and specific theme. She also insisted that a curator’s act of selecting participating artists reveals the curator’s identity, as the artists in the exhibition themselves account for 80% of the exhibition. With regard to choosing artists, she noted that the most important factor is a well-timed selection of artists, which casts the appropriate prominence on why the curator made the decision to show those artists at that point in time.
 
2) Curating that “Responds” 
Sungwon Kim began her curating practice in earnest in 2002. The first exhibition she curated was the solo show of Swiss-born artist Sylvie Fleury, which took place at Artsonje Center in 2002. She took note of the radical aspect of Sylvie’s artworks, as expressed in a rather extreme performance where a car trampled and traversed cosmetics placed on Artsonje Center’s exhibition floor. In discussing the necessity of putting forth the effort to grasp and connect with the context of the exhibition space when organizing a domestic exhibition that introduces overseas artists, Kim cited examples of exhibitions including Yayoi Kusama (2003) and Mix Max (2004), both of which took place at Artsonje Center.  
 
Kim asked the participants to organize a show that “responds” to a current issue. For instance, the show ‘B-Side’ (2008) was organized in response to Gallery Hyundai’s status as a commercial gallery. The exhibition’s purpose was to show the “B-side” of young artists that could not be exposed in a commercial gallery environment. Its follow-up exhibition was ‘SeMA Gold 2012: Hidden Track’ (2012) at the Seoul Museum of Art. Kim came up with the title of a “hidden track,” which refers to a type of bonus song within an album through which a musician is able to express his or her experimental aspects. Therefore, the title of the show came from Kim’s concept of attempting to show the unrestrained aspects of works by mid-career artists that had in the meanwhile been hidden next to their major artworks. Additionally, Kim stated that when she was the artistic director of the Atelier Hermes, she organized exhibitions focusing largely on sculpture due to her interest in sculpture’s function as an object reflecting society. 
 
Kim said that apart from her experience as the Director of Culture Station Seoul 284, she rarely had the chance to curate an exhibition as she pleased from the ground level up. However, she again emphatically asserted that, if given the space and opportunity, one should find a breakthrough by adapting to unfavorable conditions and curating an exhibition that “responds” by utilizing one’s own thoughts and perspectives. Kim pointed out that one can hardly expect to meet a situation that is a perfect match, and that the important things are to adjust, compromise, and respond. 
 
3) The Public and Audience 
Addressing the question of the relationship between an exhibition plan and its audience, Kim stated that at the exhibition planning stage, rather than first considering the audience, a curator should place a greater emphasis on the environment that exposes an artist and his or her artworks. Further, she said that thinking about the audience and public should not affect the quality and content of an exhibition; these concerns can be addressed, for example, through educational programs, workshops, seminars, and so on. The important thing, she noted, is to present the public with a “means of perception.”