Nam June Paik Virtual Gallery

by Kim Tran for APAH

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Most of the context of Nam June Paik’s work points towards the Fluxus movement. Fluxus focused on experimental approaches toward different mediums. For Nam June Paik, his unique medium was definitely electronics and television. The main proponents of Fluxus, especially George Maciunas, Joseph Beuys, and Wolf Vostell had a large impact on Paik.

Fluxus had an anti-art ideology, which meant that they wanted to stray away from typical forms of art as much as possible. They thought that sticking to typical forms of art meant conformity. Maciunas thought that Fluxus’ intention was to “Purge the world of bourgeois sickness, ‘intellectual,’ professional & commercialized culture, PURGE the world of dead art, imitation, artificial art, abstract art, illusionistic art, mathematical art, — PURGE THE WORLD OF ‘EUROPANISM’!” Paik definitely enforced this rule as he chose the mixed media route and strayed from typical “European” standards.

Today, when one is asked to define Fluxus, they can’t really put a finger on what it actually it is, and that’s the point of Fluxus. Fluxus is supposed to stray away from what is deemed as art.

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Nam June Paik was a Korean American artist. He was born in Seoul in 1932. He was trained to be a classical pianist. In 1950, this training was slightly interrupted as Paik had to flee from Korea during the Korean War. He and his family ended up in Hong Kong, but soon moved to Japan, where he graduated from the University of Tokyo. Nam June Paik continued his music education in West Germany at Munich University. This is where he met several conceptual artists and soon started to dabble in the Fluxus movement. With his entry into Fluxus, he delved right into exploring he mass media of television in his artwork, especially in his 1963 work Exposition of Music- Electronic Television. He soon moved to New York and was at the forefront of a new generation of artists creating an aesthetic based on television and motion media. He collaborated with visionaries such as Laurie Anderson, Joseph Beuys, David Bowie, Cage, and Merce Cunningham. He continued to work with electronics in his art, and we can see the evolution of technology along with the evolution of his artwork.

For most of his career as an artist, Paik resided in Manhattan with his wife Shigeko Kubota. He practiced Buddhism for most of his life, who never smoked, drank, and interestingly, never drove a car. His studio was definitely represented of his art, as it could be compared to a television repair studio. In 1996, he suffered a stroke which impaired his left side and used a wheel chair for the rest of his life, which got in the way of his artwork. He died in 2006 in Miami due to complications from his stroke.

With his innovative use of technology in his artwork, he has definitely left an impact in the art world. He allowed other artists to realize the potential of using video and television in their works. He has allowed viewers to imagine an altered reality within the digital world, which had never been done before.

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Venus by Nam June Paik

1990

Painted aluminum infrastructure, 1 multi painted satellite dish, TV sets, disk player

on sale by Galerie Hans Mayer

Venus was a piece of a larger installation video art piece that he envisioned each piece as a component of the galaxy as a planet. This piece conveys Venus as a large half-sphere painted in camp-green with Hangul, and is surrounded by small Sony televisions playing a continual loop of a synced video of flashing images. The TVs convey flashing bright colors and geometric figures. The images TV create an effect that makes the viewer feel like they a being pulled into the sphere as they swirl around. Venus basically serves as a black hole. This creates a mesmerizing experience for the viewer and allows them to experience an altered state of consciousness.

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Megatron/Matrix by Nam June Paik

1995

Video installation, custom electronics, color, sound

at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Megatron/Matrix is about the size of a billboard. It consists of 215 monitors. The Megatron portion of the work is the expansive, rectangular section, while the Matrix portion is the smaller, square, section. The video on the screens consists of a loop of unrelated soundbites. The original work mixes images from the Seoul Olympics with videos of Korean folk rituals and modern dance. Smaller clips play to create an overall image on the entire work. The interplay between the larger portion and the smaller portion represents the world without boundaries that the electronic world provides.

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TV Buddha by Nam June Paik

1976

Buddha and TV monitor

not on display

Interestingly enough, TV Buddha was intended to be just a space filler at one of Nam June Paik’s exhibitions. It consists of a wooden Maitreya, which is a Buddha of the future. This Maitreya was made by Paik’s friend Kaldor, who frequently collaborated with Paik on projects. The Buddha faces a screen and video recorder that tapes the Buddha on real time and loops it, which blurs the Buddha itself. This played on the idea that once a real life subject becomes a part of the digital realm it becomes distorted. This also plays onto the idea that once religion becomes commercialized and distorted, especially in the media, its original meaning gets lost.

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Electronic Superhighway by Nam June Paik

1995

Video installation, custom electronics, neon lighting, steel and wood, color, sound

at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Electronic Superhighway reflects the expansive nature of the interstate highway system in the United States. Nam June Paik was amazed at the highway system in the U.S. that confronted him when he came here as a young adult. The huge country is represented by 336 televisions, 50 DVD players, 3,750 feet of cable, and 575 feet of multicolored neon tubing. Neon colors line each state, representing the unique nature of each state despite the homogeny that the highway system could entail. However, this homogeny is enforced as each state holds screens that represent how America is connected through the Internet and 24 hour broadcasting. So, not only is America connected by the interstate highway system, it is also connected by the internet and media. However, each state has different scenes playing on each screen, which implies that even though the country is connected by media, each state contributes to the diversity of the country as a whole by having their own identity.

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TV Garden by Nam June Paik

1974

Video installation with color television sets and live plants

at the Guggenheim NYC

TV Garden integrates the natural and the scientific. As one walks through the installation work, they encounter TVs placed amongst live plants. Color pulsates through the installation as all the TVs are all turned on, playing montages from John J. Godfrey’s Global Groove, which depicts performers around the world dancing. This provides an immersive experience as the viewer not only sees the artwork, but can walk through it, see the media, and hear the music from it. Global Groove is also chopped and screwed to the point where the images flashing on the screen appear to be a rampant mess, which suggest that the technology reflects the disorder of the natural jungle. The TVs project their luminescence onto the plants, and provides some kind of juxtaposition between the natural world and the technological advancements of humans.

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Bibliography

https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/9537

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/tv-garden/

http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=71478

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/342.2011.a-f/

http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=36486

https://www.artsy.net/artwork/nam-june-paik-venus-1

https://lvpa2013.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/nam-june-paik-venus-response/

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-fluxus-movement-art-museums-galleries