Cover Page
The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/24836 holds various files of this Leiden University
dissertation.
Author: Yoon, Min-Kyung
Title: Aestheticized politics : the workings of North Korean art
Issue Date: 2014-03-18
Chapter 1: Situating Art
In the press release for a North Korean art exhibition held in Berlin, art is described as a
medium giving insight. As an attempt to unshroud North Korea, an abyss of the unknown, the
press release continues, “you can make the interior of a country visible: how people feel, how
they manage their life, how they see the world” through art.1 Though this statement may come
as a surprise for those accustomed to associating North Korean art with politically-driven
propaganda, art in North Korea, indeed, lays bare invaluable insights about the underpinnings of
North Korean society. When one conjures up images of North Korean paintings, more often
than not it is less their status as works of art that capture one’s attention than their presumed
function as propaganda in totalitarian states. They are usually categorized as banal and jejune,
mass-produced and devoid of aesthetic value, simply underscoring the contrast between
meaningless reproduction and creative inspiration. Yet as the press release of the Berlin
exhibition alludes, there is more to North Korean art than propaganda.
What is Art? How to define art has long preoccupied twentieth-century art theorists.
During the mid twentieth-century, a series of arguments were advanced, seeking to demonstrate
that a definition of art was impossible. These arguments, labeled as “neo-Wittgensteinian” by
Noël Carroll, arose under the influence of Wittgenstein and wielded considerable influence.2
According to these arguments, art could not be defined because artworks belong to diverse
genres and, therefore, finding a common link among them seems to be in vain. This line of
argument is called the open art concept. Art is unable to be defined also because there is no
1
UF6 Projects Gallery Berlin / New York and Galerie Irrgang Leipzig / Berlin Present Restricted Views: Art from
North Korea / Kunst Aus Nord-Korea. This exhibition was held from April 28 to May 27, 2012 in two galleries in
Berlin, Germany, the UFG Projects Gallery in Berlin-Kreuzberg and Galerie Irrgang in Berlin-Mitte.
2
Noël Carroll, ed., Theories of Art Today (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 3. These arguments
were largely set forth by Morris Weitz, William Kennick, and Paul Ziff.
single characteristic that is common to all artworks; instead, overlapping similarities and
resemblances exist. Called the family resemblance theory, this argument contends that there are
general characteristics that are common to all artworks, not a single property possessed by every
artwork.3
In response to the skepticism of neo-Wittgensteinianism, art theorists contested the
impossibility to define art, reopening the path toward a vibrant discourse on what art is during
the latter part of the twentieth-century. In the seminal article “The Artworld,” Arthur C. Danto
argued that artworks have an essential property, a necessary condition that must be met in order
to be considered an artwork—art theories. Artworks require, “an atmosphere of artistic theory, a
knowledge of the history of art: an artworld.”4 Danto’s argument was further developed and
redefined by George Dickie to produce the institutional theory on art, which argues that an object
becomes an artwork only within the boundaries delineated by an institution of art—the artworld
and later evolving into the art circle.5 The artworld is a network composed of museums,
commercial market systems, artists, and art appreciators, and it sets out to define, maintain, and
reproduce the cultural category of art. The artworld is essentially the social practice that
determines which object qualifies to be an artwork by various members of this practice, such as
artists and art appreciators. As a result, an object qualifies to be an artwork if it functions as an
artwork within the boundaries of the artworld practice.
Other definitions of art that have been proposed to address the history and purpose of art.
Robert Stecker argues that there is a consensus view on key elements that need to be included in
the definition of art. These elements include reference to the history and function of art, artistic
3
Ibid., 5-9.
Arthur C. Danto, “The Artworld,” Journal of Philosophy 61 (1964): 580.
5
George Dickie, Art and the Aesthetic: Art Institutional Analysis (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974) and The
Art Circle: A Theory of Art (New York: Haven, 1984).
4
intention, and the institutional context of the artworld.6 Intention and function of art are also
addressed in James C. Anderson’s definition of art. Anderson defines art aesthetically by
contending that aesthetic appreciation is the key element to the aesthetic definition of art.
Aesthetic appreciation occurs when an individual regards one’s experience with a particular
object as possessing inherent value. Anderson argues that there are two concepts of art:
descriptive and evaluative. He calls works of art as artifacts and as intentionally produced. The
descriptive conception is based on intention while the evaluative conception is rooted in function.
If an artifact is created with the intention of being an object of aesthetic appreciation, according
to the descriptive conception, it is art. If an artifact functions to be an object of aesthetic
appreciation, then, it is art, according to the evaluative conception.7
Definitions of art have also sought to give voice to non-Western and tribal art in the
discourse on defining art. The idea of intention and function when defining art is especially
relevant in a discussion on art from non-Western regions, or the art of the “other.” While many
Western art theories focus on art as a medium providing aesthetic pleasure through the
examination of the aesthetic properties of an artwork or the artwork’s Christian message, art can
also serve socially useful purposes.8 In the sociology of the arts, the emphasis on the nonaesthetic aspects of art is one of the dominant themes social scientists use in their discussion of
the art-society relationship. One of the non-aesthetic aspects of art, according to sociologists, is
the instrumentality of art to enhance ideas, products, and events.9 The instrumentality of art can
6
Robert Stecker, “Is it Reasonable to Attempt to Define Art?,” in Theories of Art Today, ed. Noël Carroll (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 45-64.
7
James C. Anderson, “Aesthetic Concepts of Art,” in Theories of Art Today, ed. Noël Carroll (Madison: University
of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 65-92.
8
Stephen Davies, “Non-Western Definitions of Art,” in Theories of Art Today, ed. Noël Carroll (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 207 and Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2005), 128137.
9
Arnold W. Foster, “Dominant Themes in Interpreting the Arts: Materials for a Sociological Model,” European
Journal of Sociology 20, no. 2 (1979): 302, 321.
also be related to function. Stephen Davies distinguishes between high art from Western cultures,
which is primarily for contemplation, and small art, such as tribal art and folk art of the West,
whose aesthetic properties are tied to its function.10 Despite the divide between high art and
small art, Denis Dutton, who also calls for the inclusion of tribal art in the discussion on defining
art, contends that there is a tendency to exaggerate the cultural difference between what one
culture considers art and foreign art that does not share the same concept of art as one’s own.11
With the range of art and art theory in the West, Dutton argues that similarities can connect
different practices of art, contributing to the inclusion of non-Western art in the discussion on
how to define art.12
Revolutionary Art
The discussion on intention and purpose in art and the call to include non-Western art in
the definition of art segue to revolutionary art and its place in the discourse on art. The
prevailing system of today’s fine arts as described by Larry Shiner—the division between art
versus craft, artist versus artisan, aesthetic versus purpose—does not always address the
differences found in some non-Western art and socialist realist, or revolutionary art.13 The idea
of “art works” from Howard Becker is useful because it goes against the grain of categorizing
modern art as a product only for aesthetic pleasure.14 As the discussion on the various ways to
define art has shown, art “works” to function as an artwork within an artworld, to be an object of
10
Stephen Davies, “Non-Western Definitions of Art,” 199-216.
Denis Dutton, “But They Don’t Have Our Concept of Art,” in Theories of Art Today, ed. Noël Carroll (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 217-238.
12
Ibid.
13
Larry Shiner, The Invention of Art: A Cultural History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 7, 12, 15.
14
Howard S. Becker, Art from Start to Finish: Jazz, Painting, Writing, and Other Improvisations (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2006), 213.
11
aesthetic appreciation, to function as an object of aesthetic appreciation, and to satisfy socially
useful purposes. In fact, modern art is not limited to mere aesthetic gratification. Although not
necessarily practical as in crafts, modern art with a clear social conscience exists. While the
instrumentality of modern art and crafts is qualitatively different, what is important is the
underlying functionality of art, whether in the form of a modern art with a social conscience or a
craft with a clear practical purpose. It is the idea of art “working” to fulfill some sort of need,
illuminating how art works in different contexts. Furthermore, what is defined as art is not
necessarily predicated upon an essential quality of art, but develops from certain historical and
social contingencies.15 The problematic nature of subscribing to an intrinsic aesthetic value in
art can be seen in the shift from the history of art to the history of images. Moving away from
the history of art as a record of aesthetic masterpieces, history of images addresses the historical
circumstances in which artworks were produced, giving a broader understanding of their cultural
significance.16
Art “working” for a purpose manifests itself powerfully in the form of revolutionary art.
In revolutionary art, an awareness of the historical circumstances of its production is vital for
understanding the cultural significance of the artwork. In totalitarian regimes, revolutionary art
is significant because it is, according to Susan Buck-Morss, a possibility for something else, an
alternative reality that may be radically different from the present one.17 Since totalitarian
regimes seek total control over the masses through an ideological indoctrination, revolutionary
art is utilized because it strives to fashion new human beings, creating an alternative, socialist
reality. The creation of a socialist world is achieved through the use of socialist realism in the
15
Noël Carroll, Theories of Art Today, 229.
Visual Culture: Images and Interpretations, ed. by Norman Bryson, Michael Ann Holly, and Keith Moxey
(Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), xvi.
17
Susan Buck-Morss, “What is Political Art?.” Private Time in Public Space inSite97 (1998): 20.
16
arts. Art is so important in totalitarian regimes that socialism, according to Evgeny Dobrenko,
could not have been produced without the arts.18 Under the overarching goal to create a socialist
world filled with revolutionary citizens, art is subordinate to the demands of the state.
It is at this juncture that art stops being political and becomes ideological.19 Political art
has a point of view and seeks to protest against the effectiveness of the way things are within the
present social and economic systems. In essence, political art is socially conscious art. What
constitutes political art changes through time because modes of expression and reception change
depending on time and context.20 In the context of revolutionary art, for example, art in Vietnam
during the second half of the twentieth-century reflected the communist ideology that served the
propaganda and revolutionary needs of the state by producing paintings that were heroic and
happy. Yet the 1990s ushered in a shifting view on what was deemed the Vietnamese national
essence. Instead of the images of happiness, paintings depicting the privations of wartime and
revolution were deemed more accurate.21 Both images are political art, reflecting the different
times and contexts in which the paintings operated. While political art may be found in all
different social and economic systems, ideological art is found in totalitarian states. Ideological
art is constrained by a historical goal on progress, which seeks to conserve the past into the
present and future. This constraint is imposed by the state, limiting the meaning of time to
political revolution as the natural progression of history. Ideological art is about confinement—
18
Evgeny Dobrenko, Political Economy of Socialist realism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).
Susan Buck-Morss, “What is Political Art?,” 20.
20
Susan Buck-Morss, “What is Political Art?.” Private Time in Public Space inSite97 (1998): 14-26, 18. As an
example, Buck-Morss speaks about the shifting modes of expression in Soviet art. While the glorification of the
worker was adopted by artists under the influence of socialist realism in Soviet Union during the 1930s, half a
century later artists instead depicted the exhausted workers as they really exist in the late twentieth-century.
According to Buck-Morss, both of these images are considered political art (Ibid.). Buck-Morss further argues that
“given the current realities of global cultural production, art has to fight for the right to exist,” which is a political
battle (Ibid., 18-20).
21
Nora A. Taylor, “Framing the National Spirit: Viewing and Reviewing Painting under the Revolution,” in The
Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam, Hue-Tam Ho Tai, ed., (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2001), 109-134.
19
absence of a free artist and, therefore, a confinement of what can be created and absence of
multiple interpretations, leading to a confinement of meaning.
In totalitarian states, art intervenes to make politics effective in order to ideologically
revolutionize the masses. How this process transpires can be gleaned from the Soviet painter
Konstantin Yuon who stated in a 1957 article that “the aesthetics of our era, our understanding of
beauty, must be embodied in every painting, must become the most important part of Soviet art,
which powerfully attracts the viewer to itself.”22 It is the “aesthetic affections,” the
instrumentality of art to powerfully affect its viewers through feelings, emotions, and the senses
that art displays its potent force.23 Through its ability to powerfully attract, art is experiential and
sensory, rendering the politics of the Soviet Union as an aesthetic phenomenon.
Aestheticized Politics and the Senses
In The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond, Boris
Groys sets forth an important idea where the boundaries between the aesthetic and the social are
dissolved, making way for social processes to be interpreted through the prism of aesthetics.
Groys likened the Soviet order to a work of state art, a means that helped to illuminate new
insights about the Soviet system.24 Through the creation of revolutionary art—paintings,
monuments, and other cultural products— the new socialist world is imagined in the process of
affecting and the viewers are, thus, revolutionized, becoming socialist citizens. Ideology makes
22
Konstantin Yuon, “Towards the First Congress of the Union of Soviet Artists,” in Russkaia Sovetskaia
Khudozhestvennaia Kritika, 1917-1941 (Moscow: Izobrazitelnoe Iskusstvo, 1982), 317. Quoted in Alla Efimova,
“To Touch on the Raw: The Aesthetic Affections of Socialist realism,” Art Journal 56, no. 1 (1997): 72.
23
Alla Efimova, “To Touch on the Raw: The Aesthetic Affections of Socialist realism,” Art Journal 56, no. 1 (1997):
72-80.
24
Boris Groys, The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond, trans. by Charles
Rougle (London: Verso, 2011).
one see and read the world, informing one’s interpretation of the world. It is the idea of
fashioning a new man, reminiscent of the Bolshevik avant-garde to create a new society. Boris
Groys argues that socialist realism was the realization of the failed avant-garde project.25
Although his is a controversial argument, it is useful because it shows how art “works” in the
often-categorized high art of the avant-garde and the ideologically-driven socialist realist art,
bridging the divide between non-socialist and socialist art.
The pivotal role feelings and emotions play in aestheticized politics can be better
informed through the ideas introduced by Susan Buck-Morss in her essay “Aesthetics and
Anesthetics” and further expanded in her book Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of
Mass Utopia in East and West.26 Reflecting on Walter Benjamin’s seminal essay, “The Work of
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Buck-Morss argues that Benjamin’s understanding
of modern experience, whether fascist or communist, is neurological and centered on shock.27
The political state and the social organization of society as exemplified by the factory system is a
sensory environment controlled and manipulated by the state where the worker’s imagination
ceased, conditioned response ruled, repetition of skill prevailed, numbing the senses as a result of
shock from synchronized industrialization.28 As a result, aesthetics becomes anesthetics.
Likening the modern experience to a drug addiction and phantasmagorias, a neurological
stimulation of the environment leads to an altered, compensatory reality that is experienced
25
Ibid.
Susan Buck-Morss, “Aesthetics and Anesthetics: Walter Benjamin’s Artwork Essay Reconsidered,” October 62
(1992): 3-41.
Susan Buck-Morss, Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West (Cambridge, MA:
The MIT Press, 2002).
27
Susan Buck-Morss, “Aesthetics and Anesthetics,” 16.
Susan Buck-Morss, Dreamworld and Catastrophe, 104.
28
Susan Buck-Morss, Dreamworld and Catastrophe, 104.
26
collectively, which arrives to the position of objective fact.29 As phantasmagorias become the
social norm, “sensory addiction to a compensatory reality becomes a means of social control.”30
The nexus between aestheticized politics and the senses becomes more lucid by
dissecting the term aesthetics. Buck-Morss traces the origins of the term aesthetics to its Greek
roots (aisthetikos) meaning “perceptive by feeling,” or the sensory experience of perception.31
The beginnings of aesthetics are largely a cognitive form, “achieved through taste, touch, hearing,
seeing, smell—the whole corporeal sensorium. To be alive is to feel—pain as well as
pleasure.”32 Unlike the prevailing notion of aesthetics as a term associated with beauty and art,
aesthetics in its original meaning pertained to the corporeal and the neurological. It is under this
original form of aesthetics that aestheticized politics of North Korea can be comprehended. The
role of art and the definition of beauty in North Korea do not fit under the dominant meaning of
aesthetics. Beauty, in North Korea, is socialist realist, represented as a paradise reality. It is the
socialist realist ideals of beauty combined with feelings, emotions, and the senses through
corporeal and neurological stimulation that drive art in North Korea. Art is to emotionally affect
the viewers, creating revolutionaries, through the senses in a forceful way that elevates the new,
alternative world of socialism to reality.
The Function and Meaning of Art in North Korea
In North Korea, art is politicized; it is an outward manifestation of the state’s needs. To
borrow Howard Becker’s phrase, “art works” in North Korea. Art is an act of power. Art “does
29
Susan Buck-Morss, “Aesthetics and Anesthetics,” 22-23.
Ibid., 23.
31
Susan Buck-Morss, Dreamworld and Catastrophe, 101.
32
Ibid.
30
things, evokes things, is a catalyst for things; it is the articulation of human needs.”33 Art is
about a powerful attraction. Turning images into reality, history into the sublime, North Korean
art is part and parcel of a totalizing cultural production. Functional and instrumental, art serves a
clear purpose to legitimate the North Korean revolution, state, and the ruling Kim family. It is
important to distinguish the general art Becker speaks of to the revolutionary art in North Korea.
Despite the difference, what is relevant about using Becker’s idea is that art can also be for more
than aesthetic pleasure. Starting from this recognition, we can begin to answer the questions,
why art? Why is art so important for North Korea? How is art in North Korea different from our
common understanding of art? And how is art mobilized?
In North Korea, art is a change-agent. Art is important to North Korea because it is a
means to induce change—to materialize the socialist transformation of the people. The socialist
world created by the North Korean state is an ideal, a socialist utopia centered on Kim Il Sung.
This utopian world is perpetuated through cultural products, such as paintings and monuments,
because culture contributes to creating a new man, underlining the importance of culture in
North Korean politics. The vision of the utopian world is kept viable through its visual
renderings by plastering paintings and posters on the streets of a city, murals on walls,
reproducing paintings in textbooks, and constructing monuments in the squares of cities and on
historical sites. To see the utopian world brought to life is crucial to sustain the revolution and
the Great Leaders’ hold on power. Artworks are the visual vocabularies that create the socialist
utopian world. Thus, a scrutiny of the visual representations of the utopian world merits
attention because it contributes to understanding North Korean politics as an aesthetic
phenomenon.
33
Howard S. Becker, Art from Start to Finish: Jazz, Painting, Writing, and Other Improvisations, 213.
A close look at North Korean artworks reveals the pervasiveness of historical themes
weaved into paintings and monuments. Paintings featuring the Great Leaders comprise the
personality cult as part of the massive state-led effort to legitimize Kim Il Sung’s rule. Like
culture, history legitimates the North Korean state and the ruling Kim family. History is a tool to
explain the North Korean revolution as the rightful trajectory for the Korean peninsula. To
understand North Korean politics as an aesthetic phenomenon, how art is mobilized, the link
between art and history is relevant. Art overwhelms with emotions while history argues. Art is a
medium to revolutionize the people by affecting the viewers with emotion. History is mobilized
to achieve a political goal in art and, thus, history is the subject.
While interpretations of art are fluid, conditioned by context and perspective, multiplicity
of interpretations is not intended in most North Korean art. Art in North Korea is restricted to a
singular interpretation, creating a sense of a unified, collective purpose. Art in North Korea is
confined by context—confinement of what an artist can actually do and confinement of the
interpretation of an artwork. Yet what is important are how art makes the viewers experience
certain moments and events, how it recreates and mobilizes a historical image, and in turn what it
informs the viewers through the process. The question of how art induces change, how it
fashions new, socialist citizens, how it creates a utopian world can be elucidated through the
means of art. Art mobilizes history by dramatizing it to affect its viewers with a powerful,
emotional force. There is an aesthetic dimension to North Korean politics, which is the theater
state argued by Suk-Young Kim, but this dissertation illuminates how art dramatizes history.
Thus, North Korean politics as an aesthetic phenomenon can also be understood by the
dramatization of history in art. Where does the political dimension of art stem from? It is
history. Politics are partly brought into art by depicting historical scenes, a process that is similar
to what Anthony D. Smith describes as the nation made real in paintings.34 Dramatization is
about emotionally affecting and creating political allegiances. To emotionally affect the viewer
is the vital element of North Korean art. Utilized for its experiential, sensory quality, art
transforms North Korean politics into an aesthetic phenomenon that functions on a sensory level.
What is revealed through this process is how the dramatization of history is a vehicle for art to
create a historical narrative, and ultimately a new aestheticized reality.
When speaking of the dramatization of history, it is useful to keep the metaphor of
history as a drama in mind. Dramatization refers to the grand gestures of individuals, the canvas
as a stage where one witnesses a scene from an unfolding drama. History becomes a drama and
on the blank canvas history transforms into a theatrical production comprised of various gestural
vocabularies. Beth S. Wright’s analysis on the dramatization of history is pushed further in the
case of North Korea.35 The historical narrative that is created through the dramatization of
history is not about a factual history that offers arguments and erudite insights. Dramatization of
history, instead, offers an emotional awareness, an emotional connection to history, and reduces
the complexity of social experience to a single, monumental narrative centered on an ongoing
struggle. Like a drama, this struggle involves a clear protagonist vis-à-vis villains, the
juxtaposition of contrasting characters heightening the emotional effects of the historical
narrative. Dramatization has the effects of histrionics because it is theatrical and staged.
Art in North Korea as part of a larger system of cultural production is driven more by
politics than ideals of beauty. “Art for art’s sake” is a distant conception as revolutionary goals
trump aesthetic appeal, mirroring closely the argument provided by Walter Benjamin on the
34
See Anthony D. Smith, The Nation Made Real: Art and National Identity in Western Europe 1600-1850 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013).
35
See Beth S. Wright, Painting and History during the French Revolution: Abandoned by the Past (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997).
function of art in the age of mechanical reproduction.36 According to Benjamin, art in the age of
mechanical reproduction is based on politics rather than any traditional, ritualistic value.37 In
this context, North Korean art resonates with the period before what Larry Shiner calls the great
division of eighteenth-century Europe when the meaning of art in Europe became largely limited
to crafts that served utilitarian purposes.38 The function and meaning of art in North Korea can
be found in Kim Jong Il’s Misullon (Treatise on Art), which begins by describing the relationship
between humans and art:
The art form that most accurately reflects the demands of the time and
serves the people and their aspirations is Juche art. Juche art is a
revolutionary and people-oriented art form that is national in form with
socialist content. It is also a new form of art that perfectly fuses ideology
and aesthetics. Materializing Juche ideology in art best fits the people’s
emotions and thoughts and acts as the basis for a new art form that serves
our revolution.39
The function of art is rooted in this relationship between humans and art to serve the
revolutionary purposes of the North Korean state. The idea of cultivating humans into
revolutionaries, therefore, occupies a central part of art’s duties.
In order for an artwork to fulfill its function as an ideological tool, beauty must coexist
with ideology. The concept of beauty is emphasized in The Treatise of Art, which states that art
36
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, trans. by Harry Zohn and ed. by Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books,
1969), 217-251.
37
Ibid., 224.
38
Larry Shiner, The Invention of Art, 5-10.
39
Kim Chŏngil, Misullon (P’yŏngyang: Chosŏn rodongdang ch’ulp’ansa, 1992), 1.
is a powerful medium that expresses the beauty of humans and nature.40 Kim Jong Il describes
the idea of beauty in the following terms:
Beauty is tied to the autonomous desires and aspirations of humans and
the emotional responsiveness a depiction evokes from a person... Emotion
comes into force and can be experienced only when an artwork is based
on the aspirations and desires of humans… A beautiful depiction of an
object that is felt through an individual’s aesthetic emotion cannot exist
without the active endeavor to understand and reform the world and
oneself… Beauty occurs when a depiction of an object that meets the
human desire and aspiration for autonomy is emotionally felt.41
As described, beauty does not necessarily equate with aesthetic pleasure. Rather, beauty arises
when the autonomous desires and aspirations of humans are emotionally experienced. Beauty is
also provocative as opposed to static. A constant desire to understand and reform oneself and the
world must accompany an emotional experience.
Giving visual form to Kim Il Sung occupies a central position in art’s role as an
ideological instrument. A subject hierarchy exists in thematic paintings as expressed by Kim
Jong Il in The Treatise of Art with the greatest emphasis placed on depicting the Great Leaders
and their revolutionary feats.42 The justification for the personality cult is found in Kim Jong Il’s
belief that a leader is the central force in the development of history, unifying and mobilizing the
people for the cause of revolution.43 The personality cult of Kim Il Sung becomes effective
when the people are emotionally tied to the Great Leader. Art, which is about emotionally
40
Ibid., 3-12.
Ibid., 4, 6, 9.
42
Ibid., 44.
43
Ibid., 22.
41
experiencing a particular moment, is the medium, the conduit that emotionally brings the people
to the Great Leader.
Socialist Realism
The creation of a socialist reality through the dramatization of history in art is
materialized by socialist realism. Socialist realism as an aesthetic system that produces a
socialist world explains the process of North Korean politics as an aesthetic phenomenon. How
socialist realism contributes to aestheticizing politics is developed by Evgeny Dobrenko who
provides an astute argument in the context of Stalinism that socialism did not produce socialist
realism to “prettify reality.” Instead, socialist realism produced socialism, giving socialism
substance and material form and elevating it to reality. The basic function of socialist realism,
according to Dobrenko, was to produce reality by aestheticizing it.44 He describes how this
process works:
If we were to remove Socialist Realism—novels about enthusiasm in
industry, poems about the joy of labor, films about the happy life, songs
and pictures about the wealth of the land of the Soviets, and so on—from
our mental image of “socialism,” we would be left with nothing that could
properly be called socialism. Nothing would remain but dreary workdays,
routine daily labor, and a life of hardship and inconvenience—the same
reality that can be attributed to any other economic system. Thus once we
“distill” Socialist Realism, there is nothing “socialist” left in the residue.
44
Evgeny Dobrenko, Political Economy of Socialist Realism.
Therefore, we may conclude that Socialist Realism produced socialism’s
symbolic values by de-realizing everydayness.45
According to Dobrenko, it is through art that socialist realism produced socialism, flooding the
cultural landscape of the Soviet Union with “novels about enthusiasm in industry, poems about
the joy of labor, films about the happy life, songs and pictures about the wealth of the lands of
the Soviets,” materializing the socialism that is commonly envisioned. As a result, socialism
could not possibly exist without the symbolic values captured in art. The byproduct of this
process of creating socialism, according to Dobrenko, is the de-realizing of everydayness. What
is presented as the final product is far removed from facts, history, or science. Rather, it is an
ideal, a vision, and, to borrow Susan Buck-Morss’ term, a “dreamworld.”46 Symbolic values
help one read reality. It is about reading one’s immediate surroundings and problems through a
prism that elevates one’s reality to something that is unrelated to the misery one is confronted
with. Through symbolic values, the specter of poverty is compensated by a dreamworld. The
idea of symbolic values and dreamworld is not necessarily unique to socialism, but found in
other social systems as well. By substituting this dreamworld for reality, a tension exists
between science and the romanticism of the ideal vision. The question, then, is how to reconcile
this tension. Lenin tackled this problem by arguing the need to actualize the dreamworld:
The rift between dreams and reality causes no harm if only the person
dreaming believes seriously in his dream, if he attentively observes life,
compares his observations with his castles in the air, and if, generally
45
46
Ibid., 5.
Susan Buck-Morss, Dreamworld and Catastrophe.
speaking, he works conscientiously for the achievement of his fantasies.
If there is some connection between dreams and life then all is well.47
Lenin likened this approach to “making history on a collective level.”48 As long as an individual
consciously works toward actualizing the dreams—an individual making history, moving history
forward—then the tension between science and romanticism gives way.
The essence of Dobrenko’s argument is that socialist realism was the apparatus for
extracting Soviet reality into socialism and this “artistic method” was the real political economy
of socialism. Power is not only or purely a product of the economy. Instead, power has its
own—political—economy. By examining the representational strategies of Stalinist cultural
production, Dobrenko shows how socialist realism created socialism through the arts. Thus,
socialist realism was Soviet Union’s most effective sociopolitical institution. The complexity of
this argument arises from the attempt to provide an explanation for the longevity of the socialist
system despite the obvious cracks and holes of the system that are manifested in everyday life.
Socialist realism through the use of signs, symbols, and motifs was an aesthetic system that
served as a substitute for reality, which left the contemporary experience unacknowledged and
disregarded. Through this act of “abandoning” the contemporary, present experience, reality
became de-realized. Instead of portraying the daily realities of the present day, quintessential
symbols of the ideals of Soviet socialism were created. It was in the creation of an alternative,
substitute reality—an ideal socialist society—that people were ideologically manipulated and
forced to live.
The irony of the socialist system was its endurance despite the weaknesses that
threatened the viability of the system. The everyday, drab reality was the exact opposite from
47
48
Ibid., 67. Quoted from Valdimir I. Lenin What Is to Be Done? (New York: International Publishers, 1969), 167.
Ibid.
the false claims of the superiority of the system. What allowed state socialism to survive, remain
afloat when the foundations, the realities of the system were so tenuous? It is in the effort to
explain the relationship between the violence and coerciveness of the Soviet system and the
monumental illusion perpetuated by socialist realism that Dobrenko’s argument can be best
applied and understood. Utilizing the Marxist formula of “Goods—Money—Goods,” Dobrenko
replaces the formula with “Reality—Socialist Realism—Reality.”49 The original reality
undergoes a facelift, passing through socialist realism, creating a brand new socialist reality. By
displacing the destructiveness, violence, and poverty of state socialism, leaving the system
unrepresented, unarticulated, and ultimately de-realized, socialist realism created a new,
substitute reality by aestheticizing it.
In North Korea, while socialist realism also serves as a filter for art production, it is
further enhanced by the dramatization of history. Art is about investing an emotional
significance to the Great Leader and the revolution, which is the most important task of art. A
new socialist reality is created by emotionally tying the people to the Great Leader. Everyone as
a collective is called to participate in the revolution that results in anything but a socialist utopia.
The shock that arises from the realities of synchronized industrialization, the antithesis of the
purported ideal socialist world, needs to be numbed. It is by emotionally linking the people to
the Great Leader that the shock is stupefied, counteracting the pain of the violent present and
transforming it into an ecstasy of joy. A good example to illustrate this is how the theme of hard
labor is depicted in paintings as wretched misery under the power of the Japanese during the
colonial period, but as joy during the post-Korean War reconstruction years under the Great
Leader.50 By emotionally aestheticizing the current reality with socialist realism and all of its
49
50
Evgeny Dobrenko, The Political Economy of Socialist realism, 6.
This idea is further developed in Ch. 2.
happiness, glory, and abundance, time halts. As the past is preserved into the present and future,
time is shackled to the confines of the revolution and the Great Leader. An illusive emotional
utopia centered on the Great Leader is created as the new reality. It is the “aesthetic affections”
of art that emotionally draw the people to the Great Leader, numbing the pains of everyday life.
When in fact the political and economic realities of state socialism are anything but a
utopia, problematizing the traditional methods of explaining the longevity of the system is
necessary. Instead of resorting to political and economic approaches, the idea of the aesthetic
project of socialist realism as the real political economy of socialism offers insights on how state
socialism is sustained despite the cracks in the system. In reference to the Soviet Union, Mikhail
Ryklin pointed out, “the core economic strength of this society was really its ideological strength,
which surrounded itself with institutions dedicated to more or less outright coercion…the only
sphere where production occurred was ideology; as a result, in the peculiar society we live in,
political ritual is the chief economic factor.”51 With the dominance of politics in all aspects of
society, debilitating economic woes from famines to poverty did not precipitate a change in
government. Instead, emphasis on ideology increases as the economy weakens.
When we speak of socialist realism, what is the realism in socialist realism? What is the
reality North Koreans talk about when they speak about realist art? Just as Dobrenko and Maxim
Gorky, the founder of socialist realism, illustrate in the Soviet context, socialist realism in North
Korea is not about facts. It is about something else, something that is emotional. Art is
experiential and, in contrast to science, it is deeply connected to emotions. Art is instructive and
educational and thus realistic, referring to reality. Yet the reality is an aestheticized reality, far
removed from the actual conditions of the present. Socialist realism is not meant to replicate the
51
Mikhail Ryklin, “Emanatsiia illegal’nosti: biurokratiia za predelami zakona,” In: Biurokratiia I obschchestvo.
Moscow, 1991, 206. Quoted in Evgeny Dobrenko, The Political Economy of Socialist realism, 9.
reality of everyday life, but to substitute it with an energized, alternative utopian reality.
Through the process of aestheticization, giving a visual form to the utopian world, realism is an
illusory vision that underpins the North Korean state. The mechanism of aestheticization, the
means of art, is the dramatization of history. Embellishing, romanticizing, glossing over, and
exaggerating, the dramatization of history is what makes socialist realism in North Korea
powerful, convincing, and moving, the engine that drives the state. The idea that there is a better
world out there, the utopian vision, despite the bleak, unremitting horrors of daily life, is the
panacea that cures all the ills of the present. The utopian vision that can never be fully realized
in the present political and economic system is kept alive in art.
Romanticism
Socialist realism as an aesthetic phenomenon in North Korea cannot be properly analyzed
without addressing how paintings relate to history. Defined by the North Korean state as
depictions of meaningful historical events, history paintings (yŏksahwa) fall under the umbrella
of thematic paintings (chujehwa). Not only do history paintings designate specific historical
events as significant by selecting them as worthwhile themes for depiction, they also convey the
artist’s ideological and aesthetic assessment of the event and the development of everyday life
that unfolds at the time of the event.52 A history painting always directly steers the interpretation
of a particular historical event, hiding, glossing over, and exaggerating certain elements to
capture what “truly” happened. The interpretation of the historical event is enhanced by the
52
Yi Kuyŏl, Pukhan Misul 50 nyŏn: chakp’um-ŭro mana-nŭn chuch’e misul (Seoul: Tolpekae, 2001), 302-303. In
the appendix of this book, Yi provides definitions of North Korean art terms, including history painting (yŏksahwa),
gathered primarily from the 1972 version of the Literary Arts Dictionary (Munhak Yesul Sajŏn) published by Sahoe
kwahak ch’ulp’ansa.
artistic characterization of usually fictional individuals placed in the scene to capture how the
everyday life at the time of the event is supposed to have been, reinforcing how history is
mobilized as an ideological tool. Just as history makes sense of the present, history paintings
also function in a similar way. They, too, make sense.
North Korea certainty did not discover history paintings. North Korean history paintings
are part of a longer, romantic tradition. The romanticism found in numerous North Korean
history paintings is a part of how the dramatization of history works, enabling the viewers to
emotionally connect with the Great Leader. While it is easy to pigeonhole North Korean art in
the category of political art from totalitarian regimes, in fact, history paintings in North Korea
function quite similarly to some European and American history paintings from the past and
most obviously to Soviet paintings. In North Korean history paintings, historical events are
embellished to capture the true meaning of the events—this is partly what the dramatization of
history is about. History paintings are about exhortation, rallying the masses to the cause of the
revolution in the case of North Korea, and elevation of the soul to new heights as part of the
engineering of the masses into revolutionaries. The nineteenth-century French art critic EtienneJean Delécluze provided a view of history paintings from a specific time and context when an
ideological shift occurred in history paintings in nineteenth-century France:
I term “history painting” that work in which an artist, after having chosen
a sorrowful or charming subject, takes up the main aim of painting an
action, sacrificing everything in order to make it clear. Thus, he will be
faithful in his description of costume, site, mores in order to inform the
viewer that the scene is laid out in Greece, Rome, or France; but he will
always sacrifice such secondary details whenever they would distract from
the attention that should be given to the main action.53
A clear purpose exists in history paintings, a purpose dedicated to inculcating morals and values.
In this endeavor, all is sacrificed, including secondary details that divert from the central aim of
revealing the moral action and message of the historical event.
What results from this act of sacrificing auxiliary details is the reduction of a multifaceted
past and social experience into a single historical narrative and interpretation. Dramatization of
history is also about a single historical narrative centered on a heroic individual that is highly
emotionalized and embellished. As the genesis of socialist realism illuminates, it is idealism that
is vigorously pursued and upheld through socialist realist artworks. Many history paintings,
though not all, depict scenes of battles, conflict, and war with heroic individuals, a tendency also
found in North Korean history paintings. Returning to nineteenth-century France when the
Revolution brought about a massive production of battle paintings, the Republican state
demanded these paintings meet an ideological need by producing paintings that were more
documentary and celebratory.54 Yet ironically, despite advocating a more documentary style,
fictitious elements for their picturesque effects were deemed more realistic while a too literal
interpretation of a battle scene was not.55 What one sees in French nineteenth-century paintings
is thus quite similar to what one sees in North Korean history paintings—the deliberate
embellishment of a single, romanticized historical narrative for a dramatic, heroic effect.
53
Etienne-Jean Delécluze, “Septième Lettre au Rédacteur du Lycée Français sur l’exposition des ouvrages de
peinture, sculpture, etc. des Artistes vivans,” Le Lycée Français 2 (1819): 186-187. Quoted from Beth S. Wright,
Painting and History During the French Restoration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 15.
Delécluze’s view was articulated in 1819 and was the conservative view of the historical painting, which had a clear
moral aim. Tensions ensued between the Conservatives (pro-monarchists) and Liberals on the merits and demerits
of a historical painting.
54
Susan Locke Siegfried, “Naked History: The Rhetoric of Military Painting in Postrevolutionary France,” Art
Bulletin 75, no. 2 (1993): 235-258, 236.
55
Ibid., 246.
The debate on how to portray the “real” war, battle, or other historical event witnessed in
nineteenth-century France was a discussion also found across the Atlantic in the production of
American Civil War history paintings. Using the style of the grand manner history painting,
where the depicted subject was imbued with a sense of nobleness through generalization and
idealization rather than direct reproduction, American painters struggled to capture the real
meaning of the Civil War.56 In North Korea, artists also struggle to depict the true meaning of an
event or moment. However, it is a confined struggle. American painters struggled about how to
capture something that is larger-than-life. In North Korea, the interpretation is already done and,
therefore, for the artists it is about how they select certain elements to create a state-sanctioned
interpretation. While American history paintings, depending on who commissions the art, may
express differences in opinion, North Korean history paintings only express one meaning that is
uncontested and ordained. Despite this difference, the characteristics of a grand manner history
painting are strikingly similar to those found in North Korean paintings. As Steven Conn notes,
grand manner history paintings tell a story, attempting “to weave together the heroism of
individuals with universal moral messages embodied by those individuals at particular
moments—specific scenes illustrating eternal truths.”57 In a grand manner history painting, the
past is invested with a didactic element and moral truth. Central to grand manner history
paintings is the dramatic action focused on heroic individuals in the midst of battles, leading
charges, all at pivotal moments of physical and moral triumph. Dramatization of history is also
about dramatic action by dramatis personae, the historical characters comprising a drama. It is
all about crucial moments where triumphant emotions are embodied by exemplary heroic figures,
the ultimate hero being the Great Leader in the case of North Korean paintings.
56
Steven Conn, “Narrative Trauma and Civil War History Painting, or Why are These Pictures so Terrible?,”
History and Theory 41, no. 4 (2002): 17-42.
57
Ibid., 22-23.
Fig. 1: Jackson Entering the City of
Winchester, William D. Washington, 1864
Fig. 2: Zhukov and Rokossovsky, Marshals of
the Soviet Union, Great Patriotic War Victory
Parade, Red Square, June 24, 1945, Sergey
Prisekin, 1985
Fig. 3: The Light of the People the Great
Leader Kim Il Sung, Hong Sŏngch’ŏl,
Kim Sŏngch’ŏl, and Hong Gŭnch’an,
yuhwa, 1990
The dramatization of a heroic figure is captured in William Washington’s painting
Jackson Entering the City of Winchester and the Soviet painting Zhukov and Rokossovsky,
Marshals of the Soviet Union, Great Patriotic War Victory Parade, Red Square, June 24, 1945.
These two paintings juxtaposed to the painting The Light of the People the Great Leader Kim Il
Sung show the parallels between the conventions of grand manner history paintings and
revolutionary art. In all three paintings, the heroes (Confederate General Stonewall Jackson,
Marshals Zhukov and Rokossovsky, and Kim Il Sung) are placed in the center and mounted on a
horse for added effect. In North Korea, the horse is a motif for power frequently found not only
in paintings but also in monuments and a documentary on Kim Jong Un.58 In an effort to
legitimate Kim Jong Un’s rise to power, the documentary features scenes of Kim galloping on a
horse, reminiscent of a valiant hero full of commanding power. The hero mounted high on a
horse physically towering over the scene is a common scene borrowed from European equestrian
statues. Surrounded by enthusiastic townspeople and soldiers, Jackson is encircled at the apex of
a compositional pyramid as he makes a triumphant entry into the city of Winchester, a structure
mirrored in the North Korean painting. The triumphant Marshal Zhukov on top of a white
stallion followed by Marshal Rokossovsky captures a moment from the gallant victory parade at
the Red Square celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War (World War
II). With the Kremlin, St. Basil’s Cathedral, and a portrait of Lenin and Stalin in the background
and the fallen flags of Nazi Germany scattered on the ground, the scene is highly dramatized, the
symbols of the victor trampling and overpowering the symbol of the defeated. The image is
centered on Marshal Zhukov, the glow of his military medals and the white stallion permeating
the scene. Kim Il Sung on top of a white horse, too, is at the vertex of a visual pyramid,
58
The title of the documentary is Succeeding the Great Work of the Military First Revolution. It was broadcast on
what is believed to be Kim Jong Un’s birthday on January 8, 2012 to show that he was in charge of the armed forces
before the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.
reminiscent of the iconic images of Napoleon mounted on a white horse.59 Flanked by ebullient
soldiers and townspeople on his either side, Kim Il Sung is also triumphant and confident as the
crowd cheers the independence of Korea from Japan. All three scenes seek to achieve the
moralizing effects of the grand manner history painting, celebrating the heroic individuals and
directing the viewers with a clear didactic message on how to interpret historical events.
Part of what makes the conventions of grand manner history paintings so attractive for
North Korea is the nationalism inherent in the history paintings. The theme of heroic American
individuals fighting for a greater, rightful cause allows the viewers to restore and renew their
belief, faith, and vision for the American future by invoking with pride and awe the events of the
past. In the case of North Korea, the deeds of heroic individuals in the face of great adversity,
whether it is Kim Il Sung during the anti-Japanese guerrilla struggle or a leader of a peasant
rebellion during the Chosŏn period, translate into an overarching, nationalist vision centered on
Kim Il Sung carrying far into the future of North Korea. Art is a powerful mechanism of
transformation and system of representation, transpiring from a ready-made narrative distilled
from history that silences rather than questions. As a whole, art is the visual library that stores
what North Korea was and what North Korea sought to become, an eternal reminder of what the
future should have looked like or should have been. For the people, art is the collection of visual
references and vocabularies that steers their understanding of reality, the current realities of their
lives. When the present difficulties seem insurmountable and the bleakness of tomorrow
overwhelms, art is a visual reminder of all that could be and more. Through art, the miseries of
today seem bearable because a greater, happier vision looms large. For outside observers of
North Korea, art stores an unattainable, utopian state project into the future, revealing how social
59
See Christopher Prendergast, Napoleon and History Painting: Antoine-Jean Gros’s La Bataille d’Eylau (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1997).
processes can be understood through the aesthetic. What is disclosed from the fusion of the
social and aesthetic is how art sustains the North Korean state. Art fiercely protects the present,
hiding and masking the dystopia of what North Korea actually became and is. In the end, an
illusory vision that could never be realized is perpetuated through the dramatization of history in
socialist realist art. As Boris Groys writes, “Socialist realism was the attempt to create dreamers
who would dream Socialist dreams.”60 Art keeps socialist dreamers afloat, nourishing them
through the treacherous waters of socialism.
60
Boris Groys, Art Power (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998), 148.