The participants of 2016 DOOSAN Curator Workshop invited Yongju Kim, the design supervisor at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art to speak as the lecturer at the seminar held on December 3rd, 2016. Kim presented case studies of exhibition designs she has conducted, and talked about the significance and meaning of exhibition design, as well as giving the participants practical suggestions regarding their joint exhibition.
 
There are diverged arguments on why exhibition design is necessary in contemporary art museums. A much more active and experimental installation style was applied in 1920s to 69s. For instance, various ways of exhibiting paintings were embraced, such as canvases being hung much higher or lower than the eye level, being attached to moving panels, or suspended from the ceiling on a rope. Alfred Barr, the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, suggested the idea of the white cube in the assertion that the standardized space would make good work good equally for all people. However, if asked whether such exhibition space would still be effective today in the art gallery or museum, the question would arouse different opinions.
 
If one asked whether exhibition design is necessary in contemporary art, the answer would be “yes”, because the exhibition space is a public space for the public. While music needs notes and performers to be played and a conductor who directs the entire ensemble, art exhibition is a product of the artists who produce the exhibited works, the designers of the space, and the curator who steers the overall direction of the exhibition. Even though the same work is exhibited, it must be exhibited in different ways according to whom the audience is, when the exhibition is held, in what space it is displayed, and what values and meanings it delivers. For example, the classic work Divine Comedy by Dante is still read by people today, not simply because the original content is revived, but probably because different responses are aroused according to how the same content is interpreted in different ways.
 
This lecture presented case studies of exhibitions Kim conducted, including 100th Anniversary of Korean Modern Master, Lee Jung Seob at MMCA Deoksugung, and As the Moon Waxes and Wanes and A Korean Contemporary Artist: Choi Man Lin at MMCA Gwacheon. Throughout the lecture, Kim gave the participants an opportunity to think about the importance and meaning of exhibition design, and also offered practical suggestions on the display for the 2016 DOOSAN Curator Workshop Exhibition Things: Sculptural Practice to be held in DOOSAN Gallery Seoul from Jan 11th to Feb 18th, 2017.