Nehaveigur

Disappearing North Korean Art: Hard to see

Back in 2010, the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna had an exhibition called Flowers for Kim Il Sung. It showed several hundred pieces of propaganda art from North Korea. As far as I can tell, the scope of this exhibition has not been met in the 16 years since.

It’s surprisingly hard to view North Korean art. Going to North Korea is out of the question for most of us. High-resolution scans of North Korean art are sparse on the internet. It’s also close to impossible to buy original North Korean art in the West. There seems to be one gallery called Koryo Studio that offers some mediocre works, and that’s it. The catalog of the 2010 MAK exhibition had reproductions of many of the pieces, but it’s not available anywhere even as a second-hand book.

Painting of former North Korean “Eternal President” Kim Il Song. Source: MAK Vienna