North Korea has displayed a sculpture of Kim Jong-un in a further sign of the intensifying cult of personality surrounding the supreme leader.
Huge statues of Kim’s late father and grandfather, Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung, are found across the country and are sites of pilgrimage where North Koreans bow reverentially and leave flowers. But this is the first known rendering in stone of the young Kim.
“A statue of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was recently shown on Korean Central Television,” an official of South Korea’s Ministry of Unification told reporters this week. “As far as we know, this is the first time it has been identified.”
Kim with his finger on the button
The television footage shows visitors walking past the indoor sculpture at the National Book and Art Exhibition at the Korean Art Gallery in Pyongyang. It depicts a beaming Kim in one of his favourite poses — pressing the button on a detonator to set off an explosion at the inauguration of a new construction project.
The carving, which ends at Kim’s upper legs, shows him in a suit and tie and a billowing coat, and is mounted on a red plinth. The artist has made no attempt to disguise the leader’s rotundity or the chubbiness of his cheeks.
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Statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il
KIM WON JIN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
It is barely life-size and far less monumental than the towering 66ft statues of Kim Jong-il and the founding president, Kim Il-sung, on Pyongyang’s Mansudae Hill. But it is part of a steady trend towards honouring Kim Jong-un with the same kind of iconography as his forebears.
An artistic representation of the face of the young Kim was first seen in 2019, formed out of thousands of signs held up at a mass stadium event in Pyongyang. Another portrait appeared three years later at an event marking the first decade of his rule. He began appearing in propaganda mosaics and paintings after that.
The amount of iconography of the young Kim has steadily increased over the years
STR/AFP
Among other images, he was depicted shovelling earth at a farm and riding a white horse.
Members of the Workers’ Party central committee have been given lapel badges bearing the young Kim’s face — although these have not replaced versions showing the two dead leaders among the general population.
Kim riding a horse at Mount Paektu
KCTV
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Photographs of the two older leaders are hung in every school, workplace and state institution and in many private homes, but in 2024 they were first seen alongside those of the young Kim.
A giant portrait of Kim began appearing in state media in the same year, usually alongside those of his father and grandfather. Last year it was displayed on its own, adding to the impression that he is establishing himself on an equal — and perhaps superior — basis to his forebears.