Jeong Hee-ja, the spouse of the late Kim Woo-joong, founder of Daewoo Group, has been recognized as the owner of parts of Nam June Paik's iconic series 'My Faust.'
According to Yonhap News on July 18, the Seoul Central District Court's Civil Division 34, led by Judge Kim Chang-mo, ruled in favor of Jeong in a lawsuit against Uyang Industrial Development (formerly Daewoo Development) for the return of certain artworks.
Jeong sought the return of 188 artworks currently held by Uyang Art Museum, but the court acknowledged her ownership of only three pieces: 'My Faust - Economics' and 'My Faust - Spirituality' by Nam June Paik, along with a work by German artist Sigmar Polke, ordering their return by Uyang Industrial Development.
Jeong stated, "Around 1991, my husband’s Uyang Industrial Development displayed and stored my personal artworks at the Gyeongju Hilton Hotel and Uyang Art Museum, but I was unable to retrieve them during the transfer of management rights at Uyang Industrial Development." She filed the lawsuit in July of last year.
The court based its decision on testimonies from the curator of Uyang Art Museum, the gallery representative who sold the artworks, and a former staff member of Jeong's office, confirming that the two Nam June Paik pieces and one Sigmar Polke piece were purchased directly by Jeong. The court also noted that Jeong had sent multiple requests to Uyang Industrial Development in 2014, stating that she had purchased the artworks with personal funds and would reclaim them if necessary.
However, the court did not recognize ownership of the remaining 185 pieces, citing a lack of objective evidence proving Jeong's purchase. Jeong claimed that she assigned an 'M' code to her owned artworks in the collection card while serving as the director of Uyang Art Museum, but the curator who created the card testified that 'M' codes were also assigned to works whose ownership was not confirmed, and corrections were made once the actual owner was identified.
The court concluded, "The mere fact that some artworks were coded as 'M' in the collection card does not definitively establish Jeong's ownership."
Uyang Industrial Development has appealed the first-instance ruling. The two Nam June Paik works recognized as Jeong's property are part of the 13-piece 'My Faust' series, inspired by Goethe's 'Faust.' Nam June Paik completed this series between 1989 and 1991, addressing 13 elements of human civilization, including environment, agriculture, economics, population, nationalism, spirituality, health, art, education, transportation, communication, research and development, and autobiography.
'My Faust - Economics' is a 3.1-meter tall altar-like structure symbolically representing the economic system using televisions and currencies from around the world. 'My Faust - Spirituality' combines televisions with various religious symbols and video objects to illuminate the essence of the human spirit in modern civilization.
Both works had been kept in a state of disrepair at Uyang Art Museum for an extended period but were restored and made publicly accessible following the museum's reopening and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in Gyeongju last year.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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