万寿台创作社

The Mansudae Art Studio is an art studio in Phyongchon District, Pyongyang, North Korea. It was founded in 1959, and it is one of the largest centers of art production in the world, at an area of over 120,000 square meters. The studio employs around 4,000 people, 1,000 of whom are artists picked from the best academies in North Korea. Most of its artists are graduates of Pyongyang University. The studio consists of 13 groups, including those for woodcuts, charcoal drawings, ceramics, embroidery and jewel paintings, among other things.

The studio has produced many of North Korea's most important monuments, such as the Monument to the Founding of the Korean Workers Party, the Chollima Statue, and the Mansu Hill Grand Monument. Its foreign commercial division is known as the Mansudae Overseas Project Group of Companies, which as of 2014 has created monuments for 18 African and Asian nations. As of 2015, Mansudae projects have been built in 17 countries: Angola, Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Cambodia, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Germany, Malaysia, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal, Togo and Zimbabwe. All images of the Kim family are produced by the Mansudae Art Studio. Before his death, the Mansudae Art Studio was under the guidance of Kim Jong Il. Since 2009, the studio has had its own space also in the 798 Art District in Beijing, China, known as the Mansudae Art Museum.

Organization and management

The studio consists of around 4,000 workers, approximately 1,000 of whom are artists aged from their mid-20s to mid-60s and selected from the best academies in the country, especially from Pyongyang University of Fine Arts. The studio takes up over 120,000 square meters, 80,000 of which are indoors. The campus-like studio includes a soccer stadium, sauna, medical clinic, paper mill, kindergarten, and even a gift shop. The studio is a state-approved destination for foreign tourists, and the gift shop has enabled tourists to purchase North Korean art for years, as selling artwork is one of the North Korea state's easiest means of gaining foreign currency. The studio is made up of thirteen groups that manufacture different types of artwork (ranging from oil paintings to ceramics and bronze statues), manufacturing plants, and more than 50 supply departments that produce and test art materials such as paint. According to the studio's official website, the studio is not a school or a Chinese-style chain factory, but rather a high quality production center that employs over half of the nation's artists who have received the two highest artistic awards available in North Korea. The manager of the studio's website, Pier Luigi Cecioni, has also claimed that the Mansudae Art Studio receives profits from the website's sales directly, as it has economic autonomy. Mansudae Art Studio has a sports team in the annual Paektusan Prize Games of Civil Servants.

History

The Mansudae Art Studio was established in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, on November 17, 1959, six years after the end of the Korean War. Before his death in 2011, the studio operated under Kim Jong Il's "special guidance."

Ties with Italy

The Mansudae Art Studio's affiliation with Italy began in 2005 with Pier Luigi Cecioni, whose position as president of an orchestra in Florence, Italy allowed him to come into contact with the studio. Cecioni's orchestra was invited to perform at the Spring Friendship Festival held in Pyongyang. While in Pyongyang, Cecioni inquired as to whether North Korea had "any art center or gallery to show [him]," and was taken to Mansudae Art Studio which at the time was little known outside of North Korea. Cecioni offered to help the studio "do something in the West," and in January 2006 he returned to Pyongyang with his brother, an artist, Director of the Florence Fine Arts Academy in Florence, and director of an exhibition center near Florence. The Cecioni brothers selected several Mansudae works to bring back to Europe and signed an agreement of exclusivity, which established Pier Luigi Cecioni as a liaison between Mansudae and the West. A provision of this agreement was that Cecioni would organize exhibitions of artwork from Mansudae in the West.

节选，摘自英文维基百科「Mansudae Art Studio」，按 CC BY-SA 4.0 使用。