Kitschy kitschy coup
THINK NORTH KOREAN art and you might imagine towering statues of the country's 'eternal president', Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994. Or perhaps social-realist murals urging workers to achieve ever greater feats of Stakhanovite-like industrial output.
The newly opened Pyongyang Art Studio in Beijing has all this and more. Owned by Nick Bonner, a Briton who specialises in organising tours to the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK), the gallery is the latest example of how cultural exchanges are helping to build bridges between the so-called 'hermit kingdom' and the outside world.
Kim Chang-hui and Lee Gyong-nam may not be well known to the average art aficionado - which is why their landscapes start at about US$1,000. Leaving aside the novelty, it could be a good investment. North Korean artists regularly exhibit in South Korea and Japan, and are well-respected inside their own country.
Kim Gi-man uses a traditional North Korean style for his bird and tree paintings, applying watercolour on top of an ink and brush base. The effect is similar to a Chinese scroll, but the tone is heavier and the colouring more varied. His work was originally priced at US$900, but Bonner is revising this after the Mansudae - the official North Korean art centre - complained that collectors were getting the paintings for a bargain.
'There's a surprisingly large art scene in North Korea,' says Bonner, who says many of the artists on show are his friends. 'They're an enormously talented people.'
It's not just landscapes that are on show. Kitschy propaganda images of patriotic soldiers, muscular workers and fertile mothers, all standing united under the same flag, are popular. Unfortunately, they're not for sale - because the government doesn't yet recognise them as art, says Bonner.
Nonetheless, the propaganda works are exquisitely detailed. In one, a buxom female welder puts the finishing touches to a pipeline. Cheering workers waving the hammer, sickle and writing brush emblem that symbolises the Workers' Party of Korea can be made out amid the clouds of sulphurous gases and flying sparks.