PYONGYANG \u2013 \u201cThat was a personal commission,\u201d says renowned North Korean sculptor Ro Ik Hwa, pointing to a bust of A. Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist denounced by the U. S. as the world\u2019s greatest nuclear proliferator.
The bust sits in Ro\u2019s workshop in Pyongyang\u2019s sprawling Mansudae Arts Studio complex, which has become the latest target of U. N. sanctions seeking to curb nuclear-armed North Korea\u2019s access to overseas hard currency revenue.
The Security Council resolution adopted unanimously in early December included a paragraph explicitly preventing U. N. member states from buying statuary from them.
The clause was aimed at a niche but lucrative business \u2014 run from Mansudae \u2014 of exporting giant memorials, mainly to Africa.
Ro, 77, is among the greatest living practitioners of such works, having been a lead artist behind some of the most iconic of Pyongyang\u2019s monuments.
The Khan bust was commissioned after the Pakistani scientist visited the city\u2019s Revolutionary Martyr\u2019s Cemetery and admired the large bronze sculptures of individuals commemorated there.
\u201cHe asked for something similar in size and shape . . . so I made one,\u201d Ro said during a recent tour of his studio.
\u201cAfter he saw it, he really liked it and sent me a full-length photo and asked for another, so I made a 2-meter-tall one,\u201d he said.
Revered by many Pakistanis as the father of the country\u2019s atomic bomb, Khan confessed in 2004 to sending nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, although he later retracted his remarks.
As U. S. secretary of state, Hillary Clinton described him as \u201cprobably the world\u2019s worst proliferator.\u201d
Khan\u2019s vanity purchase is dwarfed in scale and cost by the monumental multimillion-dollar projects Mansudae has worked on overseas \u2014 including the 50-meter-tall African Renaissance Monument, completed in 2010, outside the Senegalese capital of Dakar.
\u201cWe\u2019ll send teams for between one and five years to work on these projects,\u201d said Kim Hyon Hui, manager of the Mansudae Overseas Project (MOP) group.
A day after the latest U. N. resolution was adopted, the U. S. Treasury added MOP to its blacklist of entities that \u201csupport North Korea\u2019s illicit activities.\u201d
Ultimate authority over Mansudae technically resides with propaganda chief Kim Ki Nam. But according to Michael Madden, editor of the website North Korea Leadership Watch, its lucrative status marks it out for special attention from Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.
\u201cGiven its prominence as a labor-service contractor and export company, realistic control over its affairs lies with Kim Jong Un\u2019s sister, Kim Yo Jong,\u201d Madden said.
A vice director in the Propaganda and Agitation Department, Kim Yo Jong has risen swiftly through the ranks of the North Korean leadership to assume what analysts see as an influential position.
Last week, she was added to the U. S. Treasury Department\u2019s blacklist in response to Pyongyang\u2019s \u201cserious\u201d censorship activities.
According to Pier Luigi Cecioni, who has operated as Mansudae\u2019s official sales representative in the West for the past decade, Mansudae and the MOP enjoy an extremely high degree of autonomy.
\u201cThey pretty much exist at the level of a ministry,\u201d said Cecioni, who sells paintings by Mansudae artists through an English-language website he manages.
African governments have been Mansudae\u2019s main market for large-scale projects, with statues, monuments and buildings ordered by countries like Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia, Namibia, Senegal and Zimbabwe.
Kim declined to provide any details of MOP\u2019s earnings, and estimates of how much hard currency the company brings in range from $5 million to $13 million a year.
\u201cIn terms of its revenue earnings, Mansudae is a fairly small player,\u201d said Madden.
\u201cBecause of its importance and prominence in the country\u2019s political culture \u2014 not to mention its \u2018supreme\u2019 patronage \u2014 Mansudae is not hard pressed to earn more,\u201d he added.
Mansudae\u2019s socialist-realist style has proved popular with revolutionary movements-turned-governments looking to create a postcolonial memorial landscape, and it provides skilled workers at a very competitive price.
\u201cOnly the North Koreans could build my statue. . .. I had no money,\u201d then-Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade told the Wall Street Journal when the African Renaissance Monument was completed at a reported cost of $27 million.
Close to 4,000 people work at Mansudae \u2014 a vast complex the size of a small village with hundreds of studios housed inside cavernous cement buildings.
It was founded in 1959 by Kim Il Sung and a giant statue of the founding president and his son and successor, Kim Jong Il \u2014 both on horseback \u2014 greets visitors inside the main entrance gates.
The studios employ 700 artists who are ranked in a clearly defined hierarchy.
At the top of the pile sit around 30 designated \u201cPeople\u2019s Artists\u201d \u2014 like Ro \u2014 who enjoy numerous benefits including foreign travel and individual studios inside the complex.
The North\u2019s art scene is tightly controlled \u2014 there is no abstract art, which is regarded as antirevolutionary by authorities \u2014 and even the top artists work for monthly salaries that bear little relation to the sale value of their work.
\u201cWe produce pieces that are demanded by revolution . . . that move people to revolution,\u201d said Hong Chun Ong, 76 \u2014 also ranked as a \u201cPeople\u2019s Artist\u201d and a 40-year veteran of Mansudae who specializes in wood cuts and propaganda images.
Hong, described by MOP manager Kim as among the \u201ctop five\u201d artists in the country, is one of the few to have traveled overseas \u2014 attending promotional exhibitions in Asia, as well as some European countries like the Netherlands.
\u201cWe sell works at our exhibitions, but also produce as requested,\u201d Kim said.
\u201cThose shown at exhibitions are more expensive because they don\u2019t get re-produced,\u201d she added.
Provenance can be problematic for those not attuned to the peculiarities of the North Korean art market.
Star artists often produce multiple copies of their most popular works which are also copied by other artists, so that more people can see them.
At the same time, Mansudae cranks out a lot of works specifically tailored for foreign consumption.
This makes finding high quality pieces, with a clear provenance and with genuine roots in the fabric of North Korean society, extremely difficult.
Prices vary enormously, with large works by top People\u2019s Artists going for tens, or hundreds of thousands of euros.
\u201cI don\u2019t deal much with expensive works like that,\u201d said Cecioni.
\u201cThe artists involved aren\u2019t well known here, so it\u2019s difficult to find buyers at that price range.\u201d
Mansudae\u2019s only bricks-and-mortar foreign representation is the gallery it operates in Beijing\u2019s 798 Art District.
North Korean art remains an extremely niche market, and China is one of the few places where works are bought and sold by collectors with any regularity.
It is possible to buy direct from the complex in Pyongyang, but financial sanctions make it difficult.
\u201cYou can\u2019t transfer money to North Korea, so if you can\u2019t go in person, there aren\u2019t that many options,\u201d said Cecioni.<\/p>\n