Baltimore artist Mina Cheon and international politics

Artists have expanded the traditional enclaves of art to human based design, design thinking and social impact design. Art always had a subversive element, if for no other reason than that artists picked up and visualized vibes that others had not yet detected or identified. In many ways art has become the glue that keeps Baltimore together with the Station North Arts District stitching together North Avenue and Charles Street, the white L and the black butterfly.

Artists veering into foreign policy, smuggling and subversive anti propaganda is going several steps further, though, especially when it includes the nuclear option. Which gets us, of course, to North Korea but also to Baltimore based South Korean artist Mina Cheon which has mastered to get into all of the above and garnered worldwide recognition for it.

Lesson 7 video still, Professor Kim Art History Lessons
being sent to North Korea and displayed in UMMA: MASS GAMES

Cheon is a Korean born Baltimore native and MICA professor with a PhD in Philosophy of Media and Communications practicing media art between Baltimore, New York and Seoul. As a daughter of a South Korean diplomat she grew up with the world as her canvas. She is married to Baltimore architect and Morgan professor Gabriel Kroiz, the couple started various forays into exchanges of American and Korean art and design resulting in a temporary MICA summer abroad program in Seoul and Morgan students visiting Seoul as well. They collaborated on many art and design projects such as Diamonds Light Baltimore for Light City 2016, and together own K-Town Studios building between Station North and Remington to house studios for artists and designers.

Cheon has for a while played with the absorption of socialist realism into her art ("Polipop") and even went as far as developing an alter ego character she dubbed Kim Il Soon. The character is a not so subtle take on the North Korean leader but expands the original to a multi faceted figure which is among other things a woman, a socialist realist painter, a naval commander, farmer, scholar, teacher and mother. The character's narrative stipulates that it was bequest to her by the Dear Leader. The character is  happy because she can fulfill her duties as a devoted citizen of the Work’s Party and paint national propagandas of North Korea. The character is a subversive attempt to combat the increasing contemptuous attitudes of the ‘demagogue Father figure’ throughout the country. Cheon's projections of the powerful Kim Il Soon are driven by almost as much omnipotence fantasies as those by the Great North Korean Leader himself.  Subversively, though, the projection transposes  power from the Father to the Umma, the North Korean mom figure and, thus, becomes also a testament to women power.

Lil Kim: Father and Umma, social realist painting

 “I work with ‘Polipop’ (short for political pop art) not as a direct propaganda, but as a way to advocate for a cultural message. I use politics and popular culture because these are the two things people are surrounded by in our daily lives." (Mina Cheon quoted in Arts and Aesthetics) 

Cheon assumes that North and South Koreans should have something to say to each other and that communication can penetrate the strong dictatorial barriers of censorship the regime in North Korea has erected. For example with smuggled memory sticks that contain narratives of western culture (Yves Klein) illustrated in the manner of North Korean socialist realism. The memory sticks contain subjects in video form such as ‘Money & Power’, ‘Abstract Art and Dreams’, ‘Feminism’, ‘Are We Equal?’, ‘Art Lives Matter’, ‘Social Justice’, ‘Remix and Appropriation Art’ and ‘Art & Technology’ in the form of lessons of ‘Kim the Teacher’ which are also her dreams in which socialist realism is overlaid by aspects of consumerism and modern art with reference to Marcel Duchamp, Ai Weiwei or Barbara Kruger. The lessons are not only circulating through North Korea via collaborators but are also on display during New York City’s ‘Asia Contemporary Art Week’  illustrating the cult of maternal love, a solution for global peace and Korean unification.
The curator of the show, Nadim Samman explains:

Through our conversations, Mina and I have come to realize that North Korean art is epic mansplaining. The recent war of words between the North Korean and U.S. leaders makes it obvious that demagogue Father figures, and man-boy posturing, need to be outflanked. With this exhibition, Mina establishes the personality cult of UMMA (‘mommy’ in Korean), whose maternal love is deployed as the only acceptable solution for global peace and Korean unification. In a way, the video lecture aspect of this project explores whether a bit of momsplaining can be a seed for a brighter future.

Happy North Korean Girl, social realist painting

This is no small undertaking. Planting seeds of subversion and cultural infiltration is a subtler and more technological advanced continuation of the well known methods of winning the minds of those behind walls of censorship and mind control such as forbidden books, disallowed radio broadcasts or flyers dropped by airplanes. In a time when the leaders of the US and North Korea have engaged in a dangerous duel of words between  two macho boys, Cheon's fantasies and alter egos could have bigger real life implications than she ever imagined. Her aspiration is humanistic:

“My dedication to sharing art with North Koreans equals my dedication for humanizing North Koreans in the eyes of the world. For most Koreans, whether in the North or the South, we are one: we dream of unification. With this project, we advocate that North Korean lives matter; and we plead, please do not destroy North Korea for the sake of global peace.”

Baltimore has proven many times that it is a fertile ground for art, just take the two recent full feature films Ratfilm and Steps. Rarely, though, has art created here stirred worldwide reactions and immersed itself into an international conflict that keeps the world on edge.

Feminist Umma, Feminist Umma, IKB dream painting

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Images used with permission. Copyright Mina Cheon Studio.

Mina Cheon's UMMA : MASS GAMES - Motherly Love North Korea, curated by Nadim Samman, opened in October is extended till January at Ethan Cohen Gallery in New York. (Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm)
Artsy: Mina Cheon is sending contemporary art lessons into North Korea
On Art and Aesthetics: "Umma: Mass Games" by Mina Cheon- Motherly Love and Education for North Korea
Light City Baltimore video