Seminar Ⅶ - Seewon Hyun

What sort of thing is a curator’s writing, and what should it be in the future? During the workshop with Seewon Hyun, we discussed the writing that a curator does. We considered various types of texts—some that are associated with exhibitions, others that definitely are not—and we talked about how the curator’s writing is distinct from the critic’s writing. The conversation also included a candid discussion of failed texts, which really brought home how important it is to have a setting for talking about such things together.

- Yurmyurng Kim

This seminar was an opportunity to think about art writing as a forum for the possibilities available to the curator. In particular, it was a chance to take a closer look at the concepts shaped by writing in the world of our speaker, Seewon Hyun. Hyun is someone who has long assigned herself the role of an “independent curator,” and I felt that she has been establishing her own form of curatorial writing based on that. What especially struck me about that process was the insight that art writing has the potential to deviate from the rigidity of established language—that it is a genre with the freedom to break away from a world of perfectly constructed texts and to circle outside of that. Art writing begins with the characteristics of artworks that are non-linear, unclear, and cannot be condensed into the realm of conformity (at times, they are a foundation that imagines this), which means that it is not necessary for any rational outcome to be extracted. Indeed, the objective of art writing may actually be to break away from those defined paths. In that sense, art writing freely absorbs the stories that are derived during the writing process. The writer generously accepts that and observes the possibilities for its expansion, while the reader of art writing elicits an imagination that is amplified through those open possibilities. In this way, each part cycles through their own role.

- Jinju Kim

For me as a curator, the workshop on “The Curator’s Writing” was an opportunity to review the most basic elements of writing. Curators write a vast variety of texts, but if I just limit myself to exhibition introductions—which were the main type discussed at the workshop—I get the sense of having overlooked “seeing” as a form of practice that should be prioritized. Sometimes, I have been so caught up in the vast volumes of research associated with a work of art that my texts have restricted the perceptions of the viewer or focused too much on presenting relevant background information. I wanted to focus a bit more on writing texts that stimulated perceptions, rather than ones that simply provided objective information to aid the viewer’s understanding of the exhibition. Seewon Hyun, the curator who hosted the workshop, spoke about the similarities between qualitative research methods and the curator’s writing, in that they involve observing things in person on the ground or a phenomenological approach based on participant interviews. She also addressed decisions about perspective (the positions of the text’s subject and object) and tense as technical elements in writing. Hyun emphasized writing as a “verb” in contrast with finished writing. In the future, I plan to make writing a part of daily life, emphasizing immediacy over passivity and breaking with scholarly patterns to more proactively practice a colloquial approach to writing.

- Jaemin Shin