An Artist Named "No Borders"

Sun Mu, Craving, 2011

A just-opened Wende Museum show is unexpectedly topical. "Upside-Down Propaganda: The Art of North Korean Defector Sun Mu" presents 15 crisply reductive paintings on the theme of borders. Sun Mu was trained as a propaganda poster artist for North Korea. He defected in 1998, ultimately settling in South Korea. His name is a pseudonym meaning "no borders."

Craving shows a rooster hopping over a border wall, or fence, or bloodbath. Flower suggests that ideological experiments are rooted in blood.

Sun Mu, Flower, 2015