[Letter to the editor]Give the full picture

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[Letter to the editor]Give the full picture

The article “Faked Reality” (Jan. 2) discusses the forgery of art. In the article, the writer argued scientific methods can be used to help determine authenticity. To support his suggestion, he noted that doubts about the authenticity of paintings by Park Soo-geun and Lee Jung-sup had been solved by scientific methods. Of course.
But still, it leaves many questions unanswered. For example, some might ask whether the current evaluation system for art pieces is reasonable. And others might wonder about the strange practice in art transactions, in which people pay a tremendous amount of money without checking the authenticity of a piece. Also some may point out the environment in the art world which ignores and actually abets unreasonable consumption.
Are these questions too difficult to think about? I believe that through such questions we can find the fundamental reason why art forgery is so prevalent. However, in the article the writer hardly questions anything and pretends as if knowing how to distinguish the original work of art is all that matters. Therefore, to me, the writer’s suggestion seems naive, and by saying that, the bigger problems that surround the issue seem to be neglected. There must be far more things to be discussed than finding a solution to the superficial problem. In addressing the forgery problem, suggesting a tool for authentication is similar to suggesting a more effective umbrella during a flood.
Newspapers often profess they are the “eyes and ears of society.” Then, they have to provide sufficient information about what is going on in society and not distract us by exaggerating only one part of what is happening. It must give people the full picture.
Kim Woo-joo, a student in the aesthetics
department at Seoul National University
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