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Kim Jong Il Looking at Things is one of the most followed, shared, and imitated single-theme Tumblr blogs of recent years. An uninterrupted sequence of photographs depicting North Korea’s Dear Leader looking at things, this series captivates viewers with its formal rigor and the intensity of the imagery it conveys. Without detracting from these photographs’ primary function—elevating Kim Jong Il to the status of an icon—this series shifts the subject and the stakes of propaganda. The icon becomes taxonomy, the viewer is viewed, and the meaning of the images constantly eludes us.
Accompanied by a previously unpublished essay by Marco Bohr titled Watching Kim Jong Il Watch Things, the book reveals the mechanisms behind our fascination with these images accumulated on the Internet—these memes—by analyzing how a series of seemingly innocent photographs becomes viral and compelling.
With the publication of *Kim Jong Il Looking at Things* in its *FOLLOW ME, Collecting Images Today* series, Jean Boîte Édition continues to shed light on an alternative art scene that positions the online collector as a creator and transforms the ephemeral into the enduring.
Published by JBE Books, 2012
16.7 cm 24 cm, 190 pages, like new
ISBN
Kim Jong Il Looking at Things is one of the most followed, shared, and imitated single-theme Tumblr blogs of recent years. An uninterrupted sequence of photographs depicting North Korea’s Dear Leader looking at things, this series captivates viewers with its formal rigor and the intensity of the imagery it conveys. Without detracting from these photographs’ primary function—elevating Kim Jong Il to the status of an icon—this series shifts the subject and the stakes of propaganda. The icon becomes taxonomy, the viewer is viewed, and the meaning of the images constantly eludes us.
Accompanied by a previously unpublished essay by Marco Bohr titled Watching Kim Jong Il Watch Things, the book reveals the mechanisms behind our fascination with these images accumulated on the Internet—these memes—by analyzing how a series of seemingly innocent photographs becomes viral and compelling.
With the publication of *Kim Jong Il Looking at Things* in its *FOLLOW ME, Collecting Images Today* series, Jean Boîte Édition continues to shed light on an alternative art scene that positions the online collector as a creator and transforms the ephemeral into the enduring.
Published by JBE Books, 2012
16.7 cm 24 cm, 190 pages, like new
ISBN
