By UN Journal Kim Ji-eun

The election of the 25th chairman of the Korean Fine Arts Association (KFAA) and the change of the election schedule and method of the executive election during the corona period on January 16, 2021 were invalidated, according to the ruling by the Seoul Southern District Court, 12th Civil Division.
 
Related to this, a press conference was held and an emergency committee was urgently organized on Feb. 14 at the basement 2F performance hall of Insa Art Plaza in Insadong, Seoul. 

The invalidation lawsuit was filed by Heo Pil-ho and Yang Sung-mo who challenged the 25th Presidential Election in the 12th Civil Division of the Seoul Southern District Court (Judge Choo Jae-gwang). They suggested that an illegal election was conducted due to problems with the election method and requested a correction, but the vice chairman of the association and candidate Lee Kwang-soo, the winner, did not accept the correction several times.

So candidate Heo Pil-ho made a difficult decision to publicize the unfairness of the Korean Fine Arts Association, and finally led to a ruling confirming the invalidity of the election after three years of long litigation.

According to the ruling, 784 voting members were not delegated in the meeting minutes. Even if they were included, there were only 505 members, which is invalid due to the lack of quorum, and the current number of delegates is 1,392, and the majority is more than 697, but there were only 41 people who attended the general assembly on site, so the invalidation ruling was accepted that the general assembly could not be established due to the lack of quorum.

Until the 24th, the election of the chairman of the Korean Fine Arts Association was a direct election method, but in the process of changing the election method of the 25th chairman to the electronic voting method due to the creation of the global corona pandemic, the 25th election was organized by the staff of the Korean Fine Arts Association.

And the related staff promoted that the 25th election was a legitimate election entrusted and managed by the Korea Election Commission by inducing all artists, chairman candidates, and members of the association to believe and participate in the election, and as a result, candidate Lee Kwang-soo and the executives were elected. 

However, when various problems were found and recognized, Yoon Myung-ho (member of the Korean Fine Arts Association Election Management Commission) and Lee Geun-soo (former head of the Yangcheon branch of the association) visited the Yangcheon Election Commission and inquired, and the Yangcheon Election Commission said that they could not outsource the management of the election, but only rented an electronic voting system, and all election methods were organized by the Korean Fine Arts Association Election Commission, and it was confirmed that there were many problems.

 
Heo Pil-ho, who organized a press conference on this irregular election, expressed his disappointment that as an artist, he was forced to enter into a legal battle after much thought and consideration to create a fair and just election climate for his juniors and the new executive team to lead the Korean Fine Arts Association, and expressed his desire to make further efforts for the development of Korean art.

The two candidates, Heo Pil-ho and Yang Sung-mo, formed the Emergency Committee for the Illegal Election of the 25th President and Executives of the Korean Fine Arts Association, demanding the suspension of candidate Lee Kwang-soo, who was elected in a fraudulent election, and said that on behalf of the emergency committee, Dr. Jung Ki-chang delivered an official message to the Korean Fine Arts Association to inform all art members.

Through the official position paper, the Emergency Measure Committee demanded: 1. The suspension of all events organized by the Korean Fine Arts Association. 2. The suspension of the 2024 Korea Art Exhibition (including each category); 3. official duties related to the association (including office work and administrative work) are suspended; and 4. the association is suspended from receiving money and conducting business.

For the sake of the future of Korean art, we hope that the Korean Fine Arts Association will be reborn as a new art association that will give hope to young students and aspiring artists and innovate for the development of art by breaking away from the ways it has been doing so far in an unclean way, and hope that it will be reborn, escaping from the unclean stigma with a quick normalization.