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gallery

In Goes, a town in Zeeland, The Netherlands, at the end of August 2017 an exhibition was held, showing more than fifty North Korean paintings, made between 1960 and 2007 by professional North Korean painters. All paintings were made on behalf of the North Korean state and are originally intended for domestic use in public buildings and hotels.

Art in North Korea is not free of obligation and is always in the service of the leader, who benefits from an idealized image of North Korea. The regime uses this well-painted socialist-realistic art to create and maintain an utopian North Korea. Essentially it's the glorification of the system by means of paintings with subjects like 'family', 'agriculture and industry', 'war and confrontation', with enemies like the US and Japan: propaganda wrapped as art, very useful in the past and for this nowadays regime as well!

I got the opportunity to capture all the exhibited paintings, so this one is the 11th one of a series of the by me selected images for uploading to Caedes. Although the last exhibited painting was made in 2007, think that this series will still show you an unique look at the closed/isolated North Korea.

Some details/description of the 11th one in this series:

Artist: Chang Ch'il-lyong

Title: 'The sun'. Painted in 2000.

Oil paint on canvas, 102 x 77 cm.

A proud father looks at his son who fell asleep whilst doing research to force a technical breakthrough in developing a boiler. The titles in the bookcase in the background of this painting illustrate that this young man is an engineering student. The collection of books don't only include the books by Kim Jong-il, but also books of steam boilers, a book with the inspiring title 'Heroes of this time'. The young generation (this is about the generation change from Kim il-sung to Kim Jong-il, as from father to son) will undoubtedly realize a powerful and prosperous country, as is stated calligraphic on the wall (kangs�ng taeguk).