Norko Realism

by Travis Jeppesen on May 30, 2014

“Rather than continuing to align the DPRK’s art with an outdated Soviet style that was internationalist in intention, one would do better to see the foreign influence as melded with North Korea’s own artistic forms and aesthetic; let’s call the mix Norko Realism. This is a socialist, yet also ultranationalist, “realism” that belongs strictly to the Korean people north of the 38th parallel, and cannot be understood apart from their ideology-infused quotidian life, which has existed for a relatively brief span of time (since the DPRK’s founding in 1948).”

My essay on DPRK art is in the summer issue of Art in America; it can be read online here.

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