[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/National_Museum_of_Korea_Seoul_2_40236586235.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tThe director of the National Museum of Korea, You Hong-june, has come under scrutiny after the institution pulled a calligraphic artwork belonging to him from its current exhibition, according to South Korean English language newspaper Korea JoongAng Daily<\/em>. Initially attributed to an independence activist, the piece was later identified as a work by a pro-Japanese collaborator.<\/p>\n \n\tYou has exhibited and donated other items in his collection to the institution since he took office in 2025, and the incident has sparked questions about his influence on the selection of works for exhibitions.<\/p>\n \n\tThe work at the center of the controversy was presented in the show \u201cThe Korean Table: Food, Nature, and Life\u201d (on view through October 25) as a piece by Park Won-geun (1912\u201350). Park was socialist activist from North Chungcheong who fought against Japanese colonial rule (1910\u20131945), a dark period in Korean history marked by forced assimilation, loss of individual rights, and exploitation.<\/p>\n \n\tA month later, amid outside questions regarding the work\u2019s attribution, the museum removed it from the exhibition; subsequent research confirmed that it was in fact by pro-Japanese bureaucrat Park Jung-yang, who had once used the name Park Won-geun.<\/p>\n \n\tWhile the museum apologized for the mix-up, it did not initially disclose the owner of the piece or how it came to be in the exhibition. You, however, admitted to lending the work, though he denied that the loan was meant to boost the value of an object in his collection. \u201cI did lend the piece from my private collection,\u201d he told JoongAng Ilbo<\/em> \u201cI also believed the calligraphy was the work of an independence activist.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe admission has spurred calls for changes to the museum\u2019s verification process. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cA national museum should apply the strictest standards when selecting exhibits, yet it is deeply concerning that works owned or recommended by the director may bypass rigorous curatorial review,\u201d a senior figure in the museum community who requested anonymity told JoongAng Ilbo. <\/em>\u201cMuseum staff must seriously reflect on their responsibility to the public and the museum\u2019s role as a public institution.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/national-museum-of-korea-director-private-collection-1234802510\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/National_Museum_of_Korea_Seoul_2_40236586235.jpg?w=1024″] The director of the National Museum of Korea, You Hong-june, has come under scrutiny after the institution pulled a calligraphic artwork belonging to him from its current exhibition, according to South Korean English language newspaper Korea JoongAng Daily. Initially attributed to an independence activist, the piece was later identified as a work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2203578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2203578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2203578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2203578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2203578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2203578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2203578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}