You Hong-june’s calligraphy error raises questions of accountability

Ko Jung-ae

The author is the editor-in-chief at the JoongAng Sunday. 

What made me decide to write about You Hong-june, director of the National Museum of Korea, was a single word he used: bulchal, meaning a failure to exercise due care or judgment. You said he was “remorseful and ashamed” over the National Museum of Korea’s decision to display a piece of calligraphy from his personal collection as the work of a patriotic independence activist, only to withdraw it later. He described the episode as “a serious mistake and a failure of judgment as an art historian.”

Adding the word “serious” does not change the meaning of bulchal. The word means failing to properly examine or scrutinize something that one ought to have examined. But was this merely a matter of failing to look closely enough?

In brief, You bought the calligraphy — Ilban Sigugeun — for 50,000 won ($37) in 2019 after it had been put up for a bargain-basement auction at 10,000 won. He recommended two pieces from his personal collection for a special exhibition that had been planned since the tenure of his predecessor and was held this May. One of them was the calligraphy. He listed its insurance valuation at 300,000 won and wrote “You Hong-june, acting as a proxy,” making it appear as though he were submitting the work on behalf of its owner. After it was determined that the work was by a pro-Japanese collaborator, he apologized four times, saying, “The museum fell short in fulfilling its basic responsibilities. It was a lack of institutional capacity and a mistake.”

It was not until the National Assembly’s parliamentary audit on Monday, after the entire sequence of events had come to light, that You finally bowed his head. Asked why he had not disclosed that the work was from his own collection, he said he had been “ashamed and hoped people would just let it pass.” After all, this was how he had dealt with controversies in the past. Did he think it would work again this time, given that he remains a powerful figure in the cultural world?

At this point, it is worth considering what an exhibition at a museum actually means. A somewhat extreme example is the Salvator Mundi. In 2005, a group of people purchased the painting after determining that it might be a work by Leonardo da Vinci. After carefully restoring it, they showed it to experts, among them Nicholas Penny, then director of the National Gallery in London. Penny had the painting brought to London so that it could be directly compared with the National Gallery’s The Virgin of the Rocks, and he assembled a group of experts. Martin Kemp, a professor at the University of Oxford, was one of them. In a 2019 interview, Kemp recalled:

“When I went into the room, there were three Leonardo specialists and others. As soon as I saw the painting, I could tell that there was something different about it. We absolutely could not afford to get excited. Too much was at stake depending on whether or not it was a Leonardo. There was an enormous amount of money at stake, and our reputations as experts were at stake. I thought we must not trust our instincts. We should use every method at our disposal, including scientific analysis and art-historical research. We asked every possible question. Only after the painting had withstood every test and every counterargument did we finally come to the conclusion that it might actually be a work by Leonardo.”

The National Gallery included the painting in its 2011 Leonardo exhibition, identifying it as a Leonardo “autograph” work. The painting was subsequently sold for the astronomical sum of $450 million. Although controversy over whether it was truly a Leonardo continued, Kemp said that “the exhibition after verification gave the work enormous credibility and authority.”

You must know this mechanism well. That is presumably why he has quoted the words of the Joseon-era master Kim Jeong-hui, better known as Chusa, saying that appreciating calligraphy and painting requires “eyes as discerning and fearsome as the Vajra Guardians and the meticulous touch of a harsh tax collector.”

As director, however, he did not act accordingly. The work was exhibited without adequate verification. You has said that he stood to gain no private benefit because he intended to donate it. But does that mean he would have been equally comfortable with the calligraphy being preserved at another museum as the work of a patriotic independence activist? There is also something misleading about saying there was no benefit. Perhaps there was no monetary gain, but he could have gained the honor of having “discovered a patriotic independence activist’s calligraphy that had been sold off at a bargain price, exhibited it at the National Museum of Korea, and then donated it.”

On Monday, You declined to answer when asked whether he would resign. I agree with an acquaintance who said, “It must be because of the cheap calculation that all he has to do is survive today, the day of the parliamentary audit. What responsibility can he possibly fulfill while clinging to his position?”

The irony is that the calligraphy has now acquired the “value” to be exhibited.

The misjudgment of You Hong-june, a figure wielding cultural power, and the failure of the National Museum of Korea, under his leadership, to properly verify the work have given the calligraphy of a pro-Japanese collaborator a new historical context.