It is quite a delight these days to read a book on North Korea that manages to be politically relevant and insightful without focusing on the country's drive to acquire nuclear weapons, its appalling human rights record, or the self-absorbed behavior of its current leader, Kim Chong-il. This refreshingly different approach is what Jane Portal offers in her 2005 publication, "Art Under Control in North Korea." Portal, an assistant curator of Asian Art at the British Museum and author of a previous book on the history of Korean art, has worked hard to provide a political context for the arts in North Korea, and, overall, has proven herself a reliable scholar on this front.
That a study of the arts in North Korea should be so important is due to two circumstances: in nearly all cases, the visual, performing, and written arts are controlled by the state and the official micromanaging them since the early 1970s at least is none other than Kim Chong-il. The fact that art exists to serve the state is tackled in an introduction that puts the North Korean arts scene into historical context by offering valuable comparative background on the USSR, China, and Nazi Germany, and there then follow two more chapters that review North Korea's history. From Chapter 4 forward, Portal takes a close look at how art has been used to promote the cult of the two Kims--Kim Chong-il and his late father Kim Il-song. The changing themes and styles in art, the institutions set up to create the art, and timelines for the dedication of particularly important public works of art are all dealt with in a neutral, businesslike manner.
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GP
Good book but seemed to end abruptly
Reviewed in Canada on October 27, 2013Verified Purchase
