The People's Great Leader, a state-sponsored art book from which the
gouaches featured there were copied, is dedicated to celebrating the
might of Kim Il Song (Korea's previous ruler), and his son, current
premier Kim Jong Il. It's not clear who is more barmy than the other.
Kim Il Sung, president from 1972, reigns still as ‘eternal president'
even after his death in 1994. When his father died, Kim Jong Il, the
current president, replaced the Gregorian calendar with one that
started from his father's birthday.
But their state-sponsored self-images veer towards the humble claim
of being 'all things to all men': they are depicted mingling with
farmers; visiting grandparents after foreign travel; giving instruction
to a sewing business; encouraging child military students; criticising
and exposing collaborators; encouraging miners; approving the
manufacture of firearms; designing the national flag; visiting a
kindergarten; directing artillery fire; even doing up a soldier's boot
for him – all with louche poses and benevolent smiles putting their
subjects at a merry ease.
The more recent crop of North Korean posters are reportedly also
produced in various studios around Pyong Yang, by trained graduates
commissioned to explore ever more creative depictions of North Korean
supremacy.
These images – aggressive, luridly graphical, emphasising the
superhuman future-perfect Korean ideology – are just the latest in a
long history of art aimed at consolidating the regime's dictats,
promoting the personality cult of the leaders, encouraging model
citizenship, and – above all in North Korea's case – bitterly despising
George Bush's oppressive American regime and the Koreans' staunch
resolution to destroy them. What they really tell us about how ordinary
people feel about life is like within one of the world's most
mysterious and disturbing regimes, is anyone's guess.
