Thursday, September 27, 2007

Korean art for British eyes


NCP leader Andy Brooks and other friends of Korea met members of the art world at the Democratic Korean embassy in London last weekend at the opening of an exhibition of modern Korean paintings, panoramas and posters to mark the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the Workers Party of Korea in October 1945.
The exhibition was opened by Pak Chang Sop, a People’s Artist and President of Korea Paekho Trading Corporation, a Kim Il Sung Prize winner, the highest award for an artist in the DPR Korea. Earlier in the month Pak Chang Sop had taken part in the 16th International Panorama Conference in Plymouth. Korean giant 3-D panoramas are known throughout the world and the draft of one covering the historic struggle against the sea building dams in Holland ran for some 35 metres down the side of the embassy grounds. Korean artists have produced historical panoramas in Syria, Kuwait and Mali but perhaps the most famous is the October War Panorama in Cairo which commemorates in dramatic detail Egypt’s victorious offensive across the Suez Canal against Israel in October 1973.
Also on display were works created by the new Korean technique of jewel-powder painting. The paintings are covered in jewel dust which then keeps the
artwork from decaying in any way. Even immersion in water
cannot affect it. Others on show were many oil paintings and posters demonstrating the vitality and strength of Korean art. In Democratic Korea all artists work in teams to produce art that serves the people. This brief two-day exhibition high-lighted some of their best and it certainly was a vivid demonstration of the superiority of the socialist system in arts and culture.

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