National treasure gets sold but won't move

Korean Heritage

Published: 16 Mar. 2022, 18:06

National treasure gets sold but won't move

The Portable Shrine of Gilt-bronze Buddha Triad, a national treasure that failed to win any bids at an auction in January, was purchased by HeritageDAO, a cryptocurrency-based decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). [NEWS1]

The Portable Shrine of Gilt-bronze Buddha Triad, a national treasure pulled from the auction block after no bids were received in January, has found a new owner: HeritageDAO, a cryptocurrency-based decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) founded by a Korean-American.

The national treasure was initially owned by the family of Kansong Jeon Hyeong-pil (1906-62) and was being managed by the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation. It was put up for auction due to the foundation’s financial troubles, along with another national treasure, Gilt-bronze Standing Buddha Triad with Inscription of "Gyemi Year.” They were the first two national treasures ever to be auctioned in Korea. There were no bids for either.

On Wednesday, the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation released a statement saying that HeritageDAO purchased the Portable Shrine of Gilt-bronze Buddha Triad not long after the auction event on Jan. 27 and then gave back physical custody to the foundation along with a 51 percent stake in the treasure.

“We want to express our gratitude to [HeritageDAO] for showing deep interest and affection for Korea’s cultural heritage and for donating 51 percent of ownership and permanent custody of the physical treasure to the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation,” said the foundation in a statement.

The foundation refused to give details on the deal with HeritageDAO, including how much it paid and how it “donated” back more than half of its ownership to the foundation. The starting price for the Portable Shrine of Gilt-bronze Buddha Triad at K Auction in January was 2.8 billion won ($2.35 million).

Can a non-Korean individual or organization own a Korean national treasure?

The Cultural Heritage Administration says yes as long as the treasure stays in the country physically.

The news of a DAO purchasing a Korean national treasure came as a shock to the many who assumed both would be purchased by the National Museum of Korea, as was the case for two rare Buddhist statues - a Gilt-bronze Standing Buddha dating back to the Unified Silla Period and a Gilt-bronze Standing Bodhisattva dating back to the Three Kingdoms Period - that were put up for auction in 2020. After failing to attract any bidders, the state-run museum made the purchase a few months later. The museum said in January that it was considering the purchase of the two treasures.

Two separate DAOs - National Treasure DAO and HeritageDAO – were established in January following news of Korea’s first auction of state-designated national treasures.

National Treasure DAO failed to raise the minimum funding goal of $4 million and issued refunds straight away. HeritageDAO, on the other hand, began raising funds, and said in an interview with CoinDesk, a U.S.-based online news site specializing in bitcoin and digital currencies, on Jan. 27, that it was “speaking with [the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation] to potentially strike a deal for less than the asking price.” It said HeritageDAO planned “a direct, private kind of a deal” which would allow it to “secure [the statues] for a cheaper price.”

HeritageDAO was founded by Korean American Leon Kim, who is the CEO of Crayon Finance, based in New York. Kim describes HeritageDAO as Crayon Finance’s first subDAO dedicated to buying national treasures.

A major objective for both DAOs, as they described, was to keep the national treasures from ending up in a private collection, where the public wouldn’t be able to see them.

Art critic Hong Kyung-han says he doesn’t buy it.

“It’s their excuse to use Korea’s national treasures for commercial expansion,” he said. Hong has been expressing concerns about the recent selling of 100 nonfungible tokens (NFTs) of Korea’s national treasure “Hunminjeongeum,” which is also owned by Kansong Art and Culture Foundation.

In HeritageDAO’s statement released on Jan. 26, it stated that it “aims to buy national treasures and fractionalize and sell 49 percent of ownership in the form of NFTs.” It added that the “national treasures are heavily undervalued due to the limited number of past transactions in their provenance," however, such transfer of value “is borderless once the ownership is minted in the form of NFTs and fractional ownership allows more retail collectors to engage with the buying and selling of treasures.”

Hong says there’s nothing wrong with DAOs selling NFTs of artworks. In fact, he encourages it. It just should not be national treasures.

“Creating a profit model with a national treasure? That’s nonsense. It deteriorates and diminishes the value and significance of the national treasures,” said Hong. “Do you think it is what the late Kansong Jeon, who dedicated his life and fortune to save Korea’s national treasures from losing their ownership to Japan, would have wanted? The Kansong Art and Culture Foundation should continue to protect its treasures under such beliefs and principles.”

BY YIM SEUNG-HYE [yim.seunghye@joongang.co.kr]