Mansudae Master Class

Che Onejoon

Che Onejoon, Mansudae Master Class, 2013-2018. 3 channel video, color, b&w, sound. 40 min 51 sec. Collection of Seoul Museum of Art

This documentary examines the diplomatic race between North and South Korea, particularly the former’s Juche Realism art movement, as seen in monuments and buildings constructed in Africa by the Mansudae Overseas Project. Overseen by Mansudae Art Studio, this initiative is largely responsible for the international proliferation of North Korean propaganda art since 1959. At present, some 18 African countries have erected statues, monuments, and buildings created by the Mansudae Overseas Project. Half of these were funded by former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung as part of his country’s diplomatic strategy in Africa, which was influenced by the diplomatic race between the two Koreas. As control of the Korean Peninsula became a geopolitical issue taken up by the United Nations following the 1953 armistice agreement of the Korean War, North Korea began to engage in diplomacy to win African support during the 1960s and pushed to join the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). In the 1980s, North Korea's aid diplomacy to Africa led to the construction of numerous monuments and public buildings in Africa, perpetuating the ongoing division of the Korean Peninsula and including a Cold War effect. When North Korea's economic situation worsened after the mid-1990s, the Mansudae Overseas Project dispatched artists and laborers to Africa in order to procure foreign currency through construction projects. Today, monumental statues and buildings in Namibia, Senegal, Botswana, and Congo serve as representative works of North Korean Juche Realism. North Korean made architecture and monuments are thus polemicized whenever social and political controversies arise, including issues related to African totalitarianism and North Korea's alleged nuclear development. (Courtesy of the artist)

Che Onejoon (b. 1979, Seoul)

Che Onejoon explores diverse mediums including video, photography and installation based on extensive research and interpretions on North Korean Art and Africa and Afro-Asian relations after the Bandung Conference. His major solo exhibitions include Capital Black (Hakgojae Gallery, Seoul, 2022), Information 2014 (Sindoh Culture Space, Seoul) and he has participated in exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, New Museum in New York. His works have also been included in biennales in Busan, Taipei, Kuandu, Jakarta and the SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul 2014 Ghosts, Spies, and Grandmothers. In 2021, Che co-founded Space Afro Asia and continues his practice as visual artist, cultural planner and social activist.

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