Kim Jong Il Looking at Things (JOÃO ROCHA)

Comical and bizarre, Kim Jong Il Looking at Things is based upon one of the most followed, shared and imitated monothematic Tumblr blogs in recent years. Created by João Rocha, an art director at an advertising firm in Lisbon, the blog is a collection of photographs which depict the former “Dear Leader” of North Korea, often accompanied by military personnel or senior advisers, engaged in the act of looking at things. Since its creation in October 2010, Rocha has posted photographs appropriated from the North Korean Central News Agency, which he matches with deadpan captions: “looking at cows”; “looking at blue rods”; “looking at pastry”; “looking at a metalworker”; “looking at a DVD labeling machine.” This hilarious book collects a series of the blog’s most memorable photographs and includes an essay by visual culture writer Marco Bohr.

Published by Jean Boîte, 192 pgs, 24.1 × 17.3 cm, Hardcover, 2015.