North Korean Economy Watch

First of all, here are the images (from the Daily NK web page):

The Daily NK also offers the following commentary:

A statue of Kim Jong Il has been revealed in a North Korean newspaper obtained by Open Radio for North Korea.

Open Radio managed to obtain a copy of the May 11th, 2010 “Chosun People’s Army,” the North Korean military’s own publication. That day, the publication ran a banner headline, “The greatest privilege and highest honor of the Mt Baekdu revolutionary army.”

“There has been an unveiling ceremony of statues of the ‘Three Mt. Baekdu Generals’ (Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Suk) dressed in military uniform at the Revolutionary History Museum of the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces,” the front page article explained.

The report added that Chief of Staff of the Chosun People’s Army Lee Young Ho and First Vice-Director of the General Political Department of the People’s Army Kim Jung Kak took part in the ceremony.

Kim Jung Kak emphasized in his speech at the ceremony that the statue of Kim Jong Il is the first dressed in military attire, claiming, “It is the luckiest and most honorable thing in the world for the Chosun People’s Army to have this, the first statue of its highest commander dressed in military uniform.”

On the subject of the relative lack of Kim Jong Il statues, Cheong Young Tae, a researcher with the Korea Institute for National Unification, explained to The Daily NK today, “Kim Jong Il inherited the family’s ruling legitimacy by making his father the eternal ‘Suryeong’ (supreme leader). It seems, then, that the process of justifying and enhancing the legitimacy of the revolution now includes setting Kim up as the second ‘Suryeong’ in order to hand over power to the next generation.”

But while statues of Kim are rather rare, they do exist. Open Radio cited a defector as saying, “I’ve seen a Kim Jong Il statue at Kim Jong Il Political Military University in Pyongyang. However, most people do not know about it.”

“I think that is natural, because it is the only university which is named after Kim Jong Il. There is no Kim Jong Il statue in any other province or in official buildings, though” he added.

Additionally, a 2008 report asserted that a gold statue of Kim Jong Il can be found “in the area in front of the National Security Agency office building at the foot of Mt. Amee in Daesung district, Pyongyang.” This one, the report asserted, was erected on Kim Jong Il’s 46th birthday in 1988, but no photos exist to corroborate the claim.

Another, white plaster statue of Kim can be found at the International Friendship Exhibition at Mt. Myohang, north of Pyongyang, this one a stalwart on the North Korean tourist trail.

Additional information:

1.  An image of the Kim Jong-il statue at Myohyangsan can be seen here (link).  Scroll down until you see it.

2.  The Kim Jong il statue reminds me of the Laurent Kabila statue in Kinshasa (both made by the Mansudae Art Studio).

According to the Daily NK:

North Korea has earned more than $160 million in the last ten years thanks to the construction of sculptures and other edifices in countries across Africa.

A Daily NK source in China revealed on the 18th, “Since 2000, North Korea has been earning colossal quantities of dollars through contracts for the Mansudae Overseas Project Group of Companies under the Mansudae Art Institute to construct sculptures.”

Mansudae Art Institute is an organization primarily dedicated to the idolization of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il through public works, one whose construction of edifices such as the Juche Tower and Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang has added to the status of the country.

It has also been building revolutionary monuments in African countries such as Ethiopia since the 1970s in order to maintain cordial relations with socialist states, but in the early 2000s started doing work in African countries to earn foreign currency as well.

According to the source, North Korea has earned $66.03 million from Namibia alone thanks to the construction of the Presidential Palace ($49 million); the Cemetery of National Heroes ($5.23 million); a military museum ($1.8 million); and Independence Hall ($10 million).

It has also earned almost $55 million from Angola via the António Agostinho Neto culture center ($40 million); Cabinda Park ($13 million); and the Peace Monument ($1.5 million).

Additionally, the North has constructed a basketball stadium ($14.4 million) and an athlete academic center ($4.8 million) in the Congo, earning almost $20 million dollars in total.

Thanks to the Monument to the African Renaissance in Senegal, the North has made another $12 million dollars.

There are around 19.8㎢ set aside for a vacation spot for the president of Equatorial Guinea, which is supposed to earn Mansudae around $800,000, not to mention a government office building ($1.5 million), Luba Stadium ($6.74 million) and conference halls ($3.5 million).

The source also reported, “The money earned from these construction projects is managed by the No. 39 Department. Some of these dollars are used for domestic governance, while the rest go to secret accounts in Switzerland or Macau to become Kim Jong Il’s secret funds.”

Here are the images from the story including a table of financial data (which I would take with a grain of salt):

Additional Information:

1. I blogged here about the Derg Monument in Ethiopia.

2. I have located some of the Mansudae Overseas projects mentioned in this story (as well as numerous other places not menioned in this story: Egypt and Syria, Zimbabwe, DR Congo). However, here are GeoEye satellite images of some of the Namibia and Angola projects mentioned above courtesy of Google Earth:  

Namibia National Heroes Acre (22°39’46.02″S,  17° 4’41.06″E):

Namibia State House (22°35’28.83″S,  17° 6’2.76″E)

Cultural Center of António Agostinho Neto (Mausoleum) (8°49’24.73″S,  13°13’8.52″E)

Some non-Korean fans at the Brazil v. DPRK World Cup match brought some humor to the game:

That is funny.

Final Score: Brazil 2, DPRK 1.

UPDATE: According to KCNA: 

Match between DPRK and Brazil 
 
Pyongyang, June 16 (KCNA) — The league match of the 2010 World Cup between the DPRK and Brazil took place at dawn (Pyongyang time) on Wednesday.

From the outset of the match the two teams fought a seesaw battle. The DPRK footballers created good shooting chances, not losing their confidence even after losing two goals.

At about the 88th minute of the match Jong Tae Se headed the ball before passing it to Ji Yun Nam who powerfully kicked it into the rival’s goalmouth, scoring a goal.

The DPRK team will meet its Portuguese rival on June 21.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

The North Koreans are back in the World Cup after a 44-year absence. But some may wonder why they bothered to come.

The Brazilians, who play in the tournament every four years, have more than 500 journalists following them here. The North Koreans, in only their second World Cup, brought two photographers, two TV reporters and one writer.

In the U.S., where soccer is still considered a minor sport, more than 136,000 World Cup tickets were sold. In North Korea, where the team is making history, the national soccer federation distributed 1,400 tickets.

In South Africa, a soccer game is a thinly disguised reason to sing, dance, scream and blow on a vuvuzela for hours. The North Korean fans handpicked to attend their country’s World Cup opener Tuesday displayed all the joy and spontaneity of accountants attending a seminar.

That the game — played in a wind chill of 24 degrees — ended in a 2-1 victory for Brazil was predictable. That several hundred North Korean fans were on hand to watch it was not.

China’s state-run news agency has reported that North Korea had offered tickets to sporting officials and tour agencies in China, which does not have a team here. Chinese journalists in South Africa had adopted the North Koreans as their own and, the news agency reported, about 1,000 Chinese dancers and musicians were recruited to cheer for the North Koreans.

But shortly before Tuesday’s game started, a five-row block of seats on the second level at Ellis Park Stadium filled up with more than 40 men and a woman, all dressed in identical red shirts, jackets and scarves, wearing identical red caps and waving small North Korean flags. Across the way there was another similarly sized red dot of fans in grandstands that were otherwise filled with the green and yellow of Brazil.

Kim Yong Chon, 43, one of the North Korean fans, said the group, which numbered 300, was not Chinese, but he admitted they had been carefully recruited by the North Korean government to make the trip. Speaking through an interpreter, he said the group had left Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, and traveled through Beijing the same day and they would stay in South Africa as long as their team does.

They sang the North Korean national anthem loudly but sat passively, almost expressionless, through most of the game, with one man sucking on a beer. They spoke only infrequently to one another — Chon said they didn’t know one another before coming to South Africa — and mainly reacted to the action on the field only when directed to do so by a man who stood before them like an orchestra conductor.

Few of the men bothered to acknowledge the non-Korean fans, following the lead of their team, which was hidden on a private floor of a luxury hotel, failed to show at news conferences and banned outside journalists from its training sessions.

FIFA has chosen not to challenge the team over media availability, so after Tuesday’s game, while members of the Brazilian team spoke at length with reporters, most of the North Korean players brushed by. Only a handful bothered to stop at all, most notably star striker Jong Tae Se, who cried during the playing of his country’s national anthem. And he was quickly shooed along by members of the North Korean delegation.

Perhaps all this would have gone unnoticed had North Korea opened against another team that plays a staid, defensive game. But against the passionate Brazilians and their samba-dancing fans, the contrast was stark.

But Chon at least tried to acknowledge the tenets of international friendship and cultural exchange events such as the World Cup are supposed to engender.

“We will also be supporting South Korea,” he said, mentioning the country that North Korean Coach Kim Jong Hun had refused to acknowledge a day earlier. “Our hearts are with them too.

“But we have no tickets for any of their games.”

And according ot the Daily NK:

The Daily NK can reveal that the roughly one hundred North Korea supporters at the North Korea v Brazil football match on Tuesday night were North Koreans already in Africa earning foreign currency for the state.

A Daily NK source in China explained more, “The people who were mobilized for cheering were workers from ‘Overseas Construction Company’ and the Mansudae Art Institute. They are all in Africa generating foreign currency.”

“Overseas Construction Company” is a government department managing personnel and their lives on construction projects abroad. North Korea has several hundred such people in African countries.

The Mansudae Art Institute earns foreign currency producing statues and other public works of art in countries such as Namibia, Angola, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, and most recently the 164-foot high, $27 million “Monument to the African Renaissance” in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, which was unveiled in April this year.

A second source explained the background to their presence. “North Korea planned to send a large cheering group from Pyongyang,” he said, “but it was cancelled due to problems of cost and difficulties regulating them on site.”

After the authorities cancelled the original plan, they attempted to sell the 65 free tickets they received from FIFA for each of North Korea’s games through overseas offices. However, that also failed.

The source explained, “The authorities attempted to sell them through Chongryon (General Association of North Korean Residents in Japan) and other foreign agents, but no one wanted to buy. Who wants to go South Africa only to see the North Korea games?”

The authorities were reportedly asking $169 per ticket.

Contradicting The Daily NK’s sources, Yonhap released an interview with one of the group, Sunwoo Ryong, today. In it, he claimed, “About 100 of us arrived here two days ago. We’re all from Pyongyang and are regular workers that volunteered.”

According to Yonhap, the group refused to reveal any further information about how they came to be in Johannesburg, but did say they intend to be at every one of the North’s matches.

Book Review 1: The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves-And Why It Matters
Author: B.R. Meyers
Reviewed by: Andrei Lankov
Review Publisher: Far Eastern Economic Review (the last issue)
Order this book on Amazon here

Most books on North Korea focus on the nuclear issue, that never-ending soap opera of the international diplomacy. In the rare cases when North Korean domestic dynamics are taken into account, the authors (most of whom do not speak or read Korean) concentrate on the official pronouncements of the regime.

Brian Myers takes a fresh approach. He largely ignores what the regime tells the outside world about itself, but concentrates instead on what North Koreans themselves are supposed to believe, paying special attention to the North Korean narratives and mass culture, including movies and television shows. North of the DMZ, mass culture is not about entertainment. Rather it is a lighter version of propaganda whose task is to deliver the same message, but in more palatable form.

As in the case in the Soviet Union, Pyongyang uses works of fiction to send signals which cannot be transmitted otherwise due to current political considerations. For example, when North Korean media found a few kind words for South Korean President Kim Dae Jung who visited North Korea in 2000 with impressive amounts of giveaway cash, North Korean novels still ridiculed him as a pathetic double-dealer.

Continue Reading here…

Bookr review 2: North Korean Posters
Editor: David Heather
Reviewed by: Aidan Foster-Carter and Kate Hext
Review Publisher: Print Quarterly, December 2009 issue (Vol XXVI no 4), pp 429-31.
Order this book on Amazon here

North Korean art is hardly well-known, but it has recently seen something of a surge. For this David Heather can claim some credit, and does. As he boasts in his brief (just one page) preface to this block of a book, “I held the largest exhibition of North Korean Contemporary Art in the West in June 2007 in the heart of London and managed to fly the North Korean Flag in Pall Mall for probably the first time ever” (p.7, capitals in original).

That militant tone, here tongue in cheek, is deadly serious in North Korean Posters. On page after gaudy page angry Korean heroes curse and smite the foe, mostly Americans with hook noses. Fists, tanks and sledgehammers crush; bayonets lunge and stab; rockets rain down – including on a shattered US Capitol (p. 138), in blithe disregard of post-9/11 sensitivities.

In a year when North Korea has been censured by the UN for testing a nuclear device and a long-range missile, such images can only reinforce stereotypes of what Koen De Ceuster in his introduction calls a country “often misrepresented and largely misunderstood” (p.9). Yet there is more to North Korean art than this, as anyone who attended David Heather’s shows at La Galleria can attest. (For those who missed out, images and comment can still be found by searching Philip Gowman’s London Korean Links website, an indispensable resource.)

Here one finds a commercial tie-in modestly unadvertised in North Korean Posters. The said posters, plus a range of other artworks – various genres of painting, tapestry and ceramics – may be purchased via www.northkoreanart.org, which proclaims that: “La Galleria Pall Mall has the privilege to be the only Gallery outside DPR Korea to be permitted to sell art and represent individual artists from North Korea. We can certify that all the works are original and authentic, made and signed by the artists themselves in Pyongyang.” These posters, here described as “Propaganda Popart” (sic), can be yours for £250 each (unframed) plus postage.

“Individual artists”? Not one is named in the book under review. Nor are the pieces dated; so one cannot trace the evolution of styles or themes, let alone particular artists. By contrast, the first volume in this series by Prestel – Soviet Posters, featuring Sergo Grigorian’s collection (2007) – is divided into six periods; each work is dated, with notes on artists and other detail. The absence of such basic data in North Korean Posters is a serious omission. De Ceuster’s useful Introduction gives the broad context, yet is oddly free-standing. With few exceptions the posters are left to shout for themselves, with no information except basic translations of the slogans – which, bizarrely and inconveniently, are printed sideways rather than below.

Furthermore, when is a North Korean poster “original and authentic”? De Ceuster notes that “hand-painted reproductions find ready buyers abroad.” Northkoreanart.org is silent on this key question for collectors: what exactly does your £250 buy, an original or a copy? (Also its comments on the actual art are trite, even illiterate: gouache and propaganda are misspelled.)

The ambiguities go on. Curiously, Northkoreanart does not say who exactly is its partner in Pyongyang, but its sister site LaGalleria.org reveals this as the Mansudae Art Studio. Yet a search swiftly brings up mansudaeartstudio.com, based in Italy and claiming to be “the only official web-site of the Mansudae Art Studio in the West,” which pipped Heather to the post with an exhibition in Genoa in May 2007. Will the real Mansudae reps please stand up? The Italian site is far more educative. Through it one can buy The Hermit Country, which despite a clichéd title (it must have miffed the comrades) is a much better, broader book on modern North Korean art, not limited to posters. The moving spirits here are a pair of Pier Luigis: Cecioni, a collector who owns 600 works; and Tazzi, an idiosyncratic but insightful critic.

For a serious academic survey, Jane Portal’s aptly titled Art Under Control in North Korea (Reaktion/British Museum, 2005), with its fully integrated text and illustrations, is essential. The current art scene in Pyongyang was recently described in an excellent piece by Adrian Dannatt in March’s Art Newspaper. This is big business, on an industrial scale. Mansudae has a thousand artists producing “at least 4,000 top level original works a year [and] a factory-style section producing copies for western hotels;” while abroad it claims to have held over 100 shows in some 70 countries.

Perhaps there are yet more ‘sole agents’ out there? North Korea lends itself to a Columbus complex. People who happen upon it often imagine they are the first ever to do so, and even when disabused they like to claim a special niche. Scepticism is in order, on many counts.

As Dannatt says: “it could not be easier to assemble a collection of contemporary DPRK art … but it could not be harder to source the originals.” He quotes Nicholas Bonner, the doyen of collectors in this area – he began in 1993, and is curating a major exhibition in Brisbane in December – on how many ‘original’ works are in fact copies, and how to tell the difference. Bonner’s website Pyongyangartstudio.com, showcasing his gallery in Beijing, makes no monopoly claims but focuses on the actual art. Interestingly Bonner eschews the propaganda genre, but has a fascinating selection of film posters: a far less aggressive variant, ignored by Heather. He is also scrupulous in specifying that what he offers are “hand painted copies.”

But back to the book. North Korean Posters is a sadly missed opportunity. It reiterates visual cliché, but gives almost no context – historical, political, artistic – for these specific works. It is just a picture book to flick through: no dates, no dimensions, no artists. For a publisher of Prestel’s stature these are shameful lapses. Is the image somehow meant to speak for itself?

Absent such essentials, this is just another twist on commie chic – like Che Guevara T-shirts. It is all very postmodern and cynical. Once upon a time North Korea was communist. Some of these posters are about ideals people believed in, as they strove to build a better society. In today’s DPRK, a half-starved neo-feudal tyranny, one of the few ways to earn hard cash is factories of well-trained draughtsmen flogging second-hand images – bilious or kitsch, take your pick – to gullible, exoticizing Westerners. (Here as in all else, the contrast with South Korea’s brilliant and original art scene is acutely painful.) The laugh is on us too, if we just gawp at these admittedly striking visuals. Have we lost our minds? Do we care to know what we are we looking at? Neither Heather nor Prestel seem bothered. Caveat lector – et emptor.

I used a copy of Soviet Posters and North Korean Posters to make this artistic discovery.

Visitors to Pyongyang’s Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum (Location here) will be interested to know that the DPRK has exported its museum technology to Syria’s Tishreen War Panorama (Location here).

The images are from this web page.

According to an official web page (I think), the panorama dimensions are 129.5m x 7.8m.  It was painted by Kim Sing Chol, O Kwang Ho, Ri Jae Su, Ri Kap Il, Kim Chol Jin, Choe Song Sik, Ri Jong Gap, Kim Ki Dok, Cha Yo Sang, Ri Yon Nam, and it opened on 6th October 1999.  These artists are employees of the Mansudae Overseas Development Group (Art Studio).

I thank a reader for sending me this information.  I have been mapping North Korean projects in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East on Google Earth.  Here are some I have blogged about: Monument to African Renaissanace, Zimbabwe Hero’s Park, Ethiopia’s Derg Monument, Kinshasa Kabila Statue, and quite a few more.  If you are aware of any North Korea projects in your area please let me know.

UPDATE: Cairo’s October War Panorama is also built by the North Koreans.   It appears to have nearly identical architecture.  It is located here.

The Art Newspaper  published an interesting piece on how artists are trained and art is produced in the DPRK.

On artistic training:

All DPRK artists are members of state-run studio complexes where the art is actually created, and every artist has a formal ranking. These start at level C, move up through B and A, followed by “Merited Artists”, then “People’s Artist”. There are around 50 “Merited Artists” still working today and perhaps 20 “People’s Artists”, the best known being Son U Yong, Kim Chun Jon, Jong Chang Mo, Li Chang and Li Gyong Nam. Almost all artists working in oil and brush-and-ink are men but there are exceptions—for example Kim Song Hui, well known for her brush-and-ink work, is also a People’s Artist. There is also the Kim Il Sung Prize but artists normally have to be at least over 50 to receive this highest accolade, the most famous recipient being Jong Yong Man.

The top art institute is the Pyongyang University of Fine Art with various sections: brush-and-ink, oil, sculpture, ceramics, mural painting and industrial arts. Young artists are selected from around the country and if they are judged sufficiently skilled they will study here. Pyongyang University requires a minimum of five years study: at the moment there are 7-10 students studying oil painting and around 20 studying Korean brush-and-ink painting. In total there are around 150 students a year in the fine art department. Students enjoy class outings to local factories and much time is devoted to object and life drawing although not with nude models but, for example, girls in swimming costumes.

After finishing university the students are selected by various art studios—the Paekho or Central Art Studio, the Songhwa established in 1997 for retired artists, and the most active studio-compound, the Mansudae in Pyongyang.

On artistic style:

The art itself looks like classic Social Realist propaganda, that Beaux Arts technical tradition received through Russia, maintained by the Soviet Union and now, with the transformation of China, only being practised in North Korea, unchanged for more than 50 years. Abstract painting does not exist as it is deemed bourgeois and anti-revolutionary, and if some representational art can be purely aesthetic without political overtones, many landscapes do portray places of the revolution or of political significance.

Obedience to the ideology and excellence in its clear communication to others are what matter rather than any individual glory. This ensures an anonymity to much DPRK production that only its cognoscenti can penetrate. Experts can not only assign an artist’s name to a work, they can also determine whether it is an “original” or one of endless “copies” of an image.

Ever since the founding of the state in 1948, certain themes have maintained their place in the officially approved iconography of the “Fatherland” and it is hard to establish which artist first produced a specific image and when. These same images can be reproduced countless times over the decades. Thus much detective work is required to trace the origin of an image, the only real source being the annual “Yearbook” cataloguing official production.

As [Nick] Bonner explains: “The skill level is very high in academic drawing and painting, but the production is massive and it’s hard to find ‘pure’ pieces, you have to know the provenance or where things were first found.” Indeed, even the museums display copies, ostensibly to “preserve” the quality of the originals kept in storage.

More information on the Mansudae Art Company:

Here visitors, especially foreign tourists, are welcome to see the artists working in their small studios, watch the instructional video on the operation of the company, and buy some work from the large gift shop. Prices at the very top end for a “People’s Artist” can reach as high as €15,000, the favoured currency for all foreign transactions.

Woodblocks are a North Korean speciality, though nowadays they have been almost entirely replaced by lino prints with an attractive rich ink finish. The first ever exhibition of such prints in the United States, loaned from Bonner’s collection, opened last year at New York’s Korea Society, which is currently touring through the country. Initial editions are often very small, less than ten, but if the image proves popular the lino is either re-cut by the same artist or by a “copy” artist and signed by him.

At Mansudae there are also small-scale ceramic sculptures available, naturally of a propagandist nature, as well as more classical ceramics. There is even a startlingly realistic sculpture, reminiscent of Duane Hanson, of North Korea’s most famous ceramicist Uchi Soun (1919-2003) and examples of his widely-exhibited work for as much as €10,000 a pot. There are also striking large-scale figurative watercolours on paper and the highest-quality work, local ink paintings called “Chosonhwa”, some of which will be “thematic art” on revolutionary themes, as each artist will produce at least one a year for the state to show his support for the country. Mansudae employs some 150 of these ink-artists, compared with perhaps 60 oil painters. With some 1,000 members Mansudae produces at least 4,000 top level original works a year, though it also has a factory-style section producing copies for western hotels. Employees, who work a five day eight-hour week, are paid, dependent on level, at a similar rate to the national average, €35 a month for a worker and €70 for a technician.

More information on art in the DPRK: 

1. The Paekho Art Studio has partnered with Felix Abt to sell their art internationally.  Their web page is here.   The Mansudae Art Studio also launched a web page (click here).

2. Nick Bonner has a huge collection of North Korean art.  I have seen quite a bit of it, and it is impressive.  He also sells North Korean art through the Pyongyang Art Studio.

3. There are a couple of books on North Korean Art.  They are very different: North Korean Posters: The David Heather Collection and Art Under Control in North Korea.

4. (h/t Werner) The Mansudae Overseas Development Group, which has been building monuments and buildings across the developing world (mostly in Africa) is part of the Mansudae Art Studio.  

Read more below:
Inside the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea
The Art newspaper
Adrian Dannatt
3/18/2009

Felix Abt, who runs the Pyongyang-based PyongSu Pharmaceutical Company, has launched a company to market North Korean art. 

From the Pyongyang Painters website:

Pyongyang Painters has the privilege to be one of the very few on-line galleries outside the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) permitted to sell art and to represent leading artists as well as new talents from this very special country. But unlike others, it is exclusively specializing on North Korean fine arts and will, over time, introduce you to the largest and most representative collection of artworks. Special attention will be given to female artists as well as promising younger talents. Buying with www.pyongyang-painters.com, you contribute to the development of art and artists in North Korea.

The initiators of this website are Felix Abt and his wife Huong who have been living in Pyongyang for many years and who have had the opportunity to get acquainted not only with the country’s institutions involved in fine arts but also with numerous artists across the country. A close partner in Pyongyang is the Paekho Arts Trading Company which is less famous than the Mansudae Arts Studio. But it is at least as dynamic and it enjoys fast growth thanks to its impressive pool of artistic talents.

We are also pleased to announce that Christine Cibert, an experienced French Art Curator & Cultural Events Coordinator & Free-lance Writer is an advisor and consultant to pyongyang-painters.com and to its clients. Christine has lived and worked in North Korea for several years and gave birth to a son in Pyongyang. Her expertise in North Korean fine arts and paintings is outstanding and we are glad that our clients can resort to her competent advice, in particular when it comes to special requests beyond the paintings shown on this website.

Since there is little exposure to the outside world the North Korean form of art is considered very pure. North Korean artists are loyal to their country and, like any other citizens, adhere to the country’s political philosophy. In the absence of influences by contemporary art trends from the rest of the world the painters have, in a unique manner, developed their own techniques and the use of colors in an original style.

The paintings exhibited include, among other things, a variety of beautiful sceneries of nature and of North Korean daily life. These pieces of artwork will give you a rare insight into the lives and thoughts of the people of this country.

The most authoritative map of North Korea on Google Earth
North Korea Uncovered v.7
Download it here

This map covers North Korea’s agriculture, aviation, cultural locations, manufacturing facilities, railroad, energy infrastructure, politics, sports venues, military establishments, religious facilities, leisure destinations, and national parks. It is continually expanding and undergoing revisions. This is the sixth version.

Additions to the latest version of “North Korea Uncovered” include: A Korean War folder featuring overlays of US attacks on the Sui Ho Dam, Yalu Bridge, and Nakwon Munitians Plant (before/after), plus other locations such as the Hoeryong Revolutionary Site, Ponghwa Revolutionary Site, Taechon reactor (overlay), Pyongyang Railway Museum, Kwangmyong Salt Works, Woljong Temple, Sansong Revolutionary Site, Jongbansan Fort and park, Jangsan Cape, Yongbyon House of Culture, Chongsokjong, Lake Yonpung, Nortern Limit Line (NLL), Sinuiju Old Fort Walls, Pyongyang open air market, and confirmed Pyongyang Intranet nodes.

Disclaimer: I cannot vouch for the authenticity of many locations since I have not seen or been to them, but great efforts have been made to check for authenticity. These efforts include pouring over books, maps, conducting interviews, and keeping up with other peoples’ discoveries. In many cases, I have posted sources, though not for all. This is a thorough compilation of lots of material, but I will leave it up to the reader to make up their own minds as to what they see. I cannot catch everything and I welcome contributions.

The most authoritative map of North Korea on Google Earth
North Korea Uncovered: Version 6
Download it here

This map covers North Korea’s agriculture, aviation, cultural locations, manufacturing facilities, railroad, energy infrastructure, politics, sports venues, military establishments, religious facilities, leisure destinations, and national parks. It is continually expanding and undergoing revisions. This is the sixth version.

Additions to the newest version of North Korea Uncovered include: Alleged Syrian nuclear site (before and after bombing), Majon beach resort, electricity grid expansion, Runga Island in Pyongyang, Mt. Ryongak, Yongbyon historical fort walls, Suyang Fort walls and waterfall in Haeju, Kaechon-Lake Taesong water project, Paekma-Cholsan waterway, Yachts (3), and Hyesan Youth Copper Mine.

Disclaimer: I cannot vouch for the authenticity of many locations since I have not seen or been to them, but great efforts have been made to check for authenticity. These efforts include pouring over books, maps, conducting interviews, and keeping up with other peoples’ discoveries. In many cases, I have posted sources, though not for all. This is a thorough compilation of lots of material, but I will leave it up to the reader to make up their own minds as to what they see. I cannot catch everything and I welcome contributions.

Asia Times
Michael Rank
8/1/2007

Above the chic shops and arcades of London’s Pall Mall, the flag of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea wafts incongruously in the wind. Look inside, and portraits of the Great Leader and the Dear Leader stare out at you.

No, the North Korean army hasn’t marched across the River Thames, but Pyongyang has established a small cultural enclave in London’s West End in the form of the first major exhibition of North Korean art in the Western world.

Curator David Heather says he first got the idea after meeting a North Korean painter at an art exhibition in Zimbabwe in 2001. “I got chatting with Mr Pak and he invited me to Pyongyang,” said Heather, making it all sound surprisingly straightforward. But the 45-year-old financier admits that mounting the exhibition was “quite a challenge … very time-consuming” and also admits that he has no great knowledge of art or the international art market.

He describes the surprisingly extensive exhibition of about 70 artworks as “an opportunity for people to see art from what is a secretive and protective society at first hand”.

The show ranges from apolitical landscapes and ceramics to a vast, blatantly propagandistic battle scene celebrating the routing of the US Army in the Korean War, as well as hand-painted posters on such unexpectedly diverse themes as “international hero” Che Guevara and “say no to sexual slavery in the 21st century”. This is a clear reference to Korean and Chinese “comfort women” who were forced into prostitution to serve Japanese soldiers during World War II.

Heather brought over three of the artists to London for the opening of the exhibition, including Pak Hyo-song, whom he had met in Zimbabwe and who has two dramatic – if highly un-North Korean – wildlife paintings of zebras and lions on show.

Pak spent five years in Zimbabwe as representative of the Mansudae Art Studio, North Korea’s leading group of official artists, whose activities include designing monuments and propaganda posters on behalf of foreign, mainly African, governments.

Pak’s dramatic if not entirely lifelike oil paintings seem to have been influenced by the well-known British African wildlife artist David Shepherd, and sure enough, the 47-year-old “Merited Artist” told Asia Times Online at the opening party that he was a great fan of Shepherd.

He is undoubtedly the only North Korean artist to have had a one-man show in Europe, after Heather mounted an exhibition of 15 of his paintings in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 2005.

The London opening featured a remarkable mix of people. It was was a rare chance for the three North Korean artists and normally elusive members of the North Korean Embassy in London to mix socially with South Korean diplomats, art collectors and business people as well as with British Foreign Office officials, members of Britain’s tiny pro-Pyongyang New Communist Party, and at least one aging Moonie.

Heather said he had hopes of bringing the show to Paris, Berlin and even New York, and that only a few days after the opening he had already sold 50 posters at 250-300 pounds sterling (US$500-600) each, as well as two large paintings priced at several thousand pounds.

The sum of 300 pounds may sound like a lot for a none too subtle North Korean poster by an anonymous artist, but propaganda art is highly fashionable nowadays, with Chinese posters from the 1960s and 1970s fetching hundreds of dollars in London and New York. Given that the North Korean posters are hand-painted while the Chinese pictures are mass-produced prints that originally cost a few cents, the North Korean versions may turn out to be rather smart investments.

Heather said he had “no idea” how much he had invested in the exhibition, including renting a gallery on one of London’s most expensive streets for six weeks. “I don’t do it to make or lose money,” he said, but he clearly takes pride in being “a good negotiator”.

He said the North Koreans are “very direct and straightforward” and that “they are very open to ideas”. He has visited Pyongyang just once, in 2004, and conducted most of his negotiations in Beijing. Heather said he had bought 150 artworks, which he would show in rotation. Pricing the pictures was difficult, as this was the first time North Korean works of art were being sold in the capitalist West, he noted. “It opens up a new market which wasn’t there before.”

The biggest and most expensive picture in the exhibition is called Army Song of Victory and is priced at 28,000 pounds. A collective work by seven artists, it shows a Korean People’s Army brass band celebrating as US troops flee in the Battle of Rakdong River in 1950. A spokeswoman said the gallery was considering an offer of 21,000 pounds on the opening night.

Heather said he had received “a lot of help” from the North Korean Embassy and the British Foreign Office, and quiet encouragement also from the South Korean Embassy, which was anxious to see what North Korean art was all about. He has taken the North Korean artists to the Houses of Parliament, the British Museum and the historic city of Bath – despite the floods covering much of western England – and invited them to his home for a traditional British dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

Heather has clearly formed an excellent rapport with the North Korean Embassy, and has even played golf with one of its diplomats on a course near London. “He’s sort of average like me. He has played on the Pyongyang golf course; it’s mainly for the elite,” Heather explained.

But holding an art exhibition is just the beginning, and Heather is now hoping to bring a 150-member North Korean orchestra over to London next year. “I’m hoping they will play in the Royal Albert Hall or Royal Festival Hall,” he said, referring to London’s two biggest concert halls.

This may not be quite as far-fetched as it sounds. Heather is working on the orchestra project with British soprano Suzannah Clarke, who has given several concerts in Pyongyang and is one of North Korea’s few foreign celebrities. Her rendition of “Danny Boy” is said to be especially popular with North Korean audiences. Given her fame and his business prowess, it’s an unlikely plan that just could come off.

Artists, Arts and Culture of North Korea runs at La Galleria, 5b Pall Mall, London SW1Y 4UY, until September 2.