There are no artists in North Korea. This is what dissident painter Song Byeok tried to explain to me as we sat in an art gallery in Columbia Heights, surrounded by huge pop art depictions of Song’s oppressed countrymen and their eternal Supreme Leaders.
“Not a single independent artist in the entire country?” I asked.
“There just can’t be. There cannot be,” Song repeated. “When you block someone’s ears and eyes since you’re born, you don’t even think about doing something individualistic like that.”
It’s quite a claim to say that in a country of 20 million – even a prison-state like North Korea – not one person has dared to put ink to paper and create images that aren’t permitted by the government. Underground artists have sprouted even in severely oppressive societies like the Soviet Union and current-day Iran. But then, if anyone is familiar with the inscrutable subject of North Korean art, it is Song Byeok. Once recruited as a propaganda painter for the regime, Song was later imprisoned and tortured by the DPRK after trying to cross the Chinese border to find food. He eventually did escape the country, and now uses his paintbrush to satirize and condemn the regime he was once compelled to glorify.
Song’s most recognizable image, hanging on a nearby wall, is a massive painting of the late Dear Leader donning Marilyn Monroe’s iconic white dress and coquettish pose. Behind me is one of Song’s more disturbing works, a painting of bony-legged, toothless children embracing a bloblike Kim Jong Il as he crushes them in a bearhug. On a nearby table lies what, at first glance, appears to be a traditional Korean ink scrollpainting. But instead of rolling hills and farmlands, it is a panorama of totalitarianism, complete with looming monuments to the omniscient rulers and forced labor camps.
Song’s paintings strike an odd balance between humor and horror. Many evoke the classic pop art style, with solid backgrounds, cheerful commercial allusions, and bright primary colors serving as a haunting contrast to the subject matter.
The artist has a quiet manner, and speaks little to no English. We talked through a translator. On Friday night, he opened his first art expo in D.C. to a packed house, and during our interview on Saturday afternoon people trickled in and out of the exhibit, buying prints of his work.
Despite Song’s artistic training, he claims that he never considered drawing anything anti-government while living in North Korea. Not due to fear of discovery, he explained, but because the independence of thought necessary to create unofficial art simply doesn’t exist in the state.
“The fact is that I would never even think about it,” said Song. “That is why I wouldn’t ever think about the risks.”
The dearth of art may seem like the least of concerns in a country where many die of malnutrition and treatable illnesses. But the physical suffering is only one tragedy of North Korea. Other tyrants have also starved and brutalized the bodies of their own people, but the North Korean government has achieved unprecedented success when it comes to starving its peoples’ minds and souls. The DPRK’s oppression is so total that Song maintains he once couldn’t even fathom drawing anything subversive about a government he eventually risked death and torture to try to escape.
The truth is, nobody – not even Song Byeok – can say with absolute certainty that there are no underground artists inside the borders of North Korea. Though if any exist, we would likely never know about or see their work.
The other alternative, far more unsettling, is that Song is right – that North Korea truly and horribly is the first state in the world where art has ceased to exist.
While Song is now out of the physical reach of the North Korean government, some shackles remain. Even “Song Byeok” is a pseudonym, to protect family still in the country. He says his art has already caught the eye of the upper ranks of the regime, something he’s openly proud of.
Song views his art as more than just a mode of self-expression and catharsis. He acknowledges that his work has a political objective, and says his main goal “is to be able to inform the people about how valuable freedom is.”
That desire extends beyond just North Korea. “The next country I’m planning to portray is Afghanistan, the women in Afghanistan, and the way they’re treated in the name of religion,” he told me, adding that he was disturbed by the fact that Afghan women can be stoned to death for simply running away with someone they love.
But for now, the artist seems preoccupied with his home country, and his hope that “North Korea can get better.” Song says his paintings are ideally intended to reach the public of North Korea, as implausible as that idea seems. “They’ll pass out of shock,” he predicted.
Song said that even in a country without artists, the public would still grasp the meaning of his paintings. “[They] will definitely understand the message,” he told me. “Because unconsciously they do know something is not right in society. That’s why they would understand right away.”
George Orwell would have understood this, it was what he was really writing about in _1984_ — and do not forget that what the field of Western psychology knows as "Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy" (CBT) actually originated in the DPRK's POW camps where they were able to get our shot-down pilots to renounce America. If you are able to control thoughts — not just even language but actual thoughts — to the point that the DPRK can and does, then you really don't have to worry about dissidents because they will police themselves. This is how you can have people literally starving to death,as they are there, without any uprisings over anything. n nThey eliminate the 'bad' thoughts and replace them with "good" ones…. n nYou should have asked him about the trains. Even the ChiComs have a real problem with the DPRK (and fear people doing exactly what he did, crossing the border in search of food). China sent (donated) trainloads of grain and the Koreans stole the trains. Yes, that is what I thought when I heard the story too, they were literally stealing the trains — they simply kept them and China had a hard enough time getting the crews back although I guess most of them basically just walked back to China, following the railroad tracks home. As I understand it, this happened more than once and so much so that the ChiComs were really not happy about it. n nChina had a real problem — they knew that they had to keep sending food lest they have a horde of starving refugees yet they really didn't like having their trains stolen so they started putting the grain & such into old boxcars and pushing them across the bridge — sending them hurtling across the river and into the DPRK without a crew or brakes or anything else, knowing they would stop eventually — also knowing that they would never get them back but they weren't loosing the engines & crews and they were old boxcars anyway. n nWhen I was told this story — by a ChiCom party member — it told me all I ever needed to know about the DPRK. There also was a military unit where the soldiers were a little bit disgruntled by the lack of food and the rest — so the DPRK had all the officers tied hand&foot, put them in the middle of the road, lined up all the solders to watch, and repeatedly ran over the officers with tanks. Rather gristly and quite inhumane. n
Part 2: n nI am not surprised that there is no unapproved artwork in the DPRK — there are no unapproved thoughts there. There haven't been for 4-5 generations now — not only is it a non-Western (non "western liberal enlightenment") country, but that regime has been in power for what – 70 years now? (We are on the third generation of "Dear Leader" now with the grandson — the Korean war started in 1950 (thank you Harry Truman and your nitwit ambassador who neglected to include Korea in her speech of where the US would resist Soviet aggression which is what caused it) and it was a Communist country before that — probably all the way back to WW-II and resistance against the Japanese — WW-II ended 67 years ago.) n nIt is the classic example of the psychologically pure totalitarian state and the line "when you block someone’s ears and eyes since you’re born, you don’t even think about doing something individualistic" probably lost a bit in the translation, if Korean is like Mandarin, a concept based language (and I believe it is), "eyes & ears" should be taken conceptually and not literally. n nIn other words, explain the color aquamarine to someone who has been blind since birth. n nExplain "God" to someone who has never been to a church or synagogue, who has never seen a Bible or Torah, who has never met a religious leader of any kind, who has never heard anyone express a religious thought of any kind, who has never seen a "Star of David" on a necklace (not even knowing what it was), who has never known any days to be considered special for any reason, who has never *ever* seen or heard anything of any manner relating to religion. This is what he meant by "eyes and ears" — if you had never seen anything, at all, you wouldn't even know what to look for. n nThis is what Orwell was talking about in terms of language and control of words. (It also is what Nietzsche was talking about when he said "God is dead" but I digress….) n nThis is what true totalitarian thought is, it also is what a liberal education is all about — to open the eyes and ears — and the real question I have is even after having been imprisoned and tortured, what was it that encouraged Song to start thinking as an individual? I actually am surprised that he did — really surprised that he did — and unless it was the death of someone whom he dearly loved, I can't imagine what would make him think as an individual. (Orwell spoke to this in the end of _1984_ where the young lovers each decide to look out for themselves rather than the other — I do wonder what it was that pushed him over the edge into individualistic thought.) n nAnd yes, the DPRK is that bad. I have no doubts.
I really feel even more sorry for the North Koreans after reading this.