Thursday, February 10, 2005

Kim Il Sung - burning books and documents

Gallery One - Kim Il Sung - Pg. 42

Also via Boing-Boing -- they're firing on all cylinders today. This is one in a series of propaganda portraits mythologizing an infamous tyrant.

But what of the expression of the girl in the first row of soldiers, third from the left? She does not look pleased at the sight of all those burning books.

I wonder if Kim Il Sung noticed? If so the artist would not have long survived.

Later in the series the tyrant starts to look both pudgy and ridiculous. At the end, the artist seems to have crossed into frank parody, or into madness.

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