The Korean Film Studio Posters

BACKGROUND:

Pyongyang Film Studio is being rennovated and the kitsch posters which were dreamt up by North Korean artists as ‘imperialist advertising’ used to make the streets more authenic are being removed. We have commissioned artwork of theses original posters as a limited edition or hand painted poster. For an artist normally commissioned to paint Propaganda Posters this was quite a challenge for Han Jong Sil.

The North Korean Film Studio was established in 1947. It built permanent sets to shoot pro revolutionary films that were very much against the Japanese colonisation of the country and the US prescence of South Korea. Different streets were created to represent colonial-era Korea, 1930’s Manchuria, South Korea, and imperial Japan. There was even a set depicting a generic European country, including a church and a number of villas.

THE POSTER ART:

Over the years, artists from the film studio were instructed to paint advertisements and hoardings to make the sets look realistic and to create a North Korean view of foreign street scenes.

You have to remember that these Korean artists would have had no direct experience of these places and would have drawn their inspiration from photographs. Their ‘capitalist’ style adverts promoted dog grooming to brothels and even included their interpretation of western-style film hoardings. The posters have a wonderful naivety, a ‘lost in translation’ feel to them. In North Korea advertising is not permitted so the artists were dealing with a medium that was truly alien to them.

Director of Koryo Studio, Nicholas Bonner, has been a regular visitor to the Film Studio since the 1990’s and he always photographed the film posters as they were replaced or re-painted. In 2003 he commissioned artists from the Film Studio to recreate the advertising posters as individual pieces of art.

A Chinese investor has recently acquired the film set, so renovations are now underway and unfortunately the original posters will most likely have been destroyed. Now the only full record of the posters is with Koryo Studio.

RECREATIONS OF THE POSTERS AVAILABLE TODAY:

We have decided that, for the first time since the commission in 2003, to giclée print on art paper, a limited edition of 20 of each of the pieces. They are all A3 in size, and signed by the artist under his pen name Han Jong Sil. They are available to you at 120 euros each (plus postage).

We also have individual hand painted posters for sale for 880 euros each. All works are signed and dated by the artist. For each purchase we will email Nicholas Bonner’s photograph of the original poster as used at the Film Studio.

Watch Order No. 27

Limited edition of 20 giclee prints at 120 eur + shipping