While offering an online platform for those whose practices are based in contemporary art to stand in solidarity with diverse voices, the Floorplan also publishes art books as an extension of exploring different formats and media of presenting art. The Floorplan’s (Irregular) Column presents various writings of the invited authors of the Floorplan in the e-book format. As for its first one, we’re delighted to present the writings of Sungwon Kim, who has been practicing as a curator and art critic since the late 1990s. After having majored in French Literature, Art History, and Museology, Sungwon Kim has worked as a curator and artistic director at the Art Sonje Center, Atelier Hermès, Spring Wave Festival, Anyang Public Art Project, Culture Station Seoul 284 as well as Asia Culture Center, and she is currently a professor of Seoul National University of Technology in the department of Fine Art. In her column, starting with the text about Sylvie Fleury’s exhibition, which took place at the Art Sonje Center in 2001, Kim contributes writing regarding the exhibition she has curated, examining them from today’s perspective.
In the early 2000s, when Kim started to work as a curator in Seoul, it was time when the cultural scene began to be diverse and globalized, based on the political stability since the inauguration of the government of Kim Dae-jung in 1998; furthermore, the concept of curatorship, which accords with the flow of global discourses, has started to be practiced. The writing about her curated exhibition looks back at the changes in curating of Korean contemporary art over the course of decades and provides an opportunity to investigate the part of the histories of curating in Korea.