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Government agencies sometimes pay taxes to purchase their works in order to help young artists in need. In that sense, the Bank of Korea, the central bank, has also purchased over a thousand works of art, including many of the works of former and current executives and employees.
Reporter Kim Min-jung covered what happened.
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Bank of Korea Currency Museum located in Jung-gu, Seoul.
Artworks owned by the Bank of Korea are exhibited or stored free of charge.
The Bank of Korea has been discovering and purchasing works every year to support up-and-coming artists.
A total of 1,064 works of art have been purchased in earnest since the 1980s.
Of these, 216 works for which the acquisition amount and appraised value were confirmed.
They were all purchased with taxes, and it was confirmed as a result of SBS coverage that among them, dozens of works drawn by former and current senior executives and employees of the Bank of Korea were included.
56 paintings of eight people including former Bank of Korea Governor Cho Soon, former Monetary Policy Committee members who served as executives of the Bank of Korea, and former head of the Financial Research and Training Institute were included.
Excluding those donated, there are 34 points, all worth about 45 million won.
The Bank of Korea gave the reason that they were also painters, but
[Bank of Korea employee: It was a long time ago, so what exactly was the reason for purchasing this?
.
In fact, they were also writers.] In spite of
this explanation, only the calligraphy works I bought from the former president, Soon Cho, raised their appraised value, while all the other works had their appraised values so badly that they plummeted to a level of at most 1/20.
Moreover, other than the works of former President Cho, the works of the rest of the executives and employees are excluded from the list of collections published on the website.
[Bank of Korea staff: We do not disclose everything.
Now, 100 points of such good works that are judged to be valuable in art history are selected (
uploaded
)]
[Jung Il-young/Member of the National Assembly (Democratic Party): (at the Bank of Korea) If you think that you are purchasing the works of employees, you indirectly pay the salary. You may see it as giving.
You might think of it as a bonus.
I don't think it fits the purpose of (purchasing art).]
The Bank of Korea said, "Since 2015, a deliberation committee including external members has been formed to decide which works to purchase." There are no records,” he said.
(Video editing: Hojin Kim, VJ: Junyoung Lee)