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- Curiosity, love for art
and an interest in a long-term investment made me decide to
visit the most isolated country in the world - North Korea. It
required a great deal of talking and negotiation at the North
Korean Embassy in London to get the final invitations from the
Ministry of Culture of North Korea. The purpose of the first
trip was to see for myself a possibility of acquiring and
taking away from North Korea some contemporary high-quality
works of art. After this first trip I was convinced that what
I was looking for was available. Back home a team of three
people was formed to combine knowledge, money and workforce to
start purchasing works of art in North Korea. After several
trips the Kaesong collection took its shape.
- Acquisitions continued,
and when the collection numbered some 2000 works by North
Korean artists, the owners of the collection decided that
these hidden treasures should be exposed to public view,
familiarizing specialists at Sotheby's with some of them. They
were pleasantly surprised by the works brought from Pyongyang
and became genuine supporters of the Kaesong collection. A few
years ago a delegation from the British Museum visited North
Korea and purchased a number of works that are now in the
collection of the British Museum.
- Vilnius will be the
spotlight of a world premier of this exhibition featuring over
one hundred North Korean paintings. It is a unique event that
takes place for the first time in Europe. Lithuanian art
lovers will be given an opportunity to be the first in the
world to admire North Korean paintings. Later this exhibition
will travel to Riga, Tallinn and St Petersburg.
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- Franciscus Broersen
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