Nam June Paik
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Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a South Korean artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of
video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. V ...
. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super highway" to describe the future of telecommunications. Born in
Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...
to a wealthy business family, Paik trained as a classical musician, spending time in Japan and West Germany, where he joined the
Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...
collective and developed a friendship with experimental composer
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...
. He moved to New York City in 1964 and began working with cellist Charlotte Moorman to create
performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
. Soon after, he began to incorporate televisions and
video tape recorder A video tape recorder (VTR) is a tape recorder designed to record and playback video and audio signal, audio material from magnetic tape. The early VTRs were open-reel devices that record on individual reels of 2-inch-wide (5.08 cm) tape. ...
s into his work, acquiring growing fame. A stroke in 1996 left him partially paralyzed for the last decade of his life.


Early life and education

Paik was born in
Keijō , or Gyeongseong (), was an administrative district of Korea under Japanese rule that corresponds to the present Seoul, the capital of South Korea. History When the Empire of Japan annexed the Korean Empire, it made Seoul the colonial capita ...
(
Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...
),
Korea, Empire of Japan From 1910 to 1945, Korea was ruled by the Empire of Japan under the name Chōsen (), the Japanese reading of "Joseon". Japan first took Korea into its sphere of influence during the late 1800s. Both Korea (Joseon) and Japan had been under polic ...
in 1932. He was the youngest of three brothers and two sisters. His , who in 2002 was revealed to be a Korean who collaborated with the Japanese during the latter's occupation of Korea, owned a major textile manufacturing firm. As he was growing up, he was trained as a
classical pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...
. By virtue of his affluent background, Paik received an elite education in modern (largely Western) music through his tutors. In 1950, during the
Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...
, Paik and his family fled from their home in
Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...
, first fleeing to
Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
, but later moved to Japan. Paik graduated with a BA in aesthetics from the
University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...
in 1956, where he wrote a thesis on the composer
Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...
. Paik then moved to
West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
in 1957 to study music history with composer Thrasybulos Georgiades at Munich University. While studying in Germany, Paik met the composers
Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...
and
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...
and the conceptual artists Sharon Grace,
George Maciunas George Maciunas (; ; November 8, 1931 Kaunas – May 9, 1978 Boston, Massachusetts) was a Lithuanian American artist, art historian, and art organizer who was the founding member and central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of ...
,
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( ; ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and Aesthetics, art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism and sociology. With Heinrich Böll, , Caroline Tisdall, Rober ...
, and Wolf Vostell.


Career

In 1961, Paik returned to Tokyo to explore the country's advanced technologies. While living in Japan between 1962 and 1963, Paik first acquired a Sony Portapak, the first commercially available video recorder, perhaps by virtue of his close friendship with Nobuyuki Idei, who was an executive at (and later president of) the
Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
corporation. From 1962, Paik was a member of the experimental art movement
Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...
. In 1964, Paik immigrated to the United States of America and began living in New York City, where he began working with classical cellist Charlotte Moorman, to combine his video, music, and
performance A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Performance has evolved glo ...
. From 1979 to 1996 Paik was professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. After nearly 35 years of being exiled from his motherland of Korea, Paik returned to South Korea on June 22, 1984. From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, Paik played an integral role in Korea's art scene. As the curator Lee Sooyon has argued, Paik became more than just an illustrious visitor to Korea, he became the leader who helped open Korea's art scene to the broader international art world. He opened solo exhibitions in Korea and mounted two world-wide broadcast projects for the 1986 Asia Games and the 1988 Olympics, both hosted in
Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...
, and organized a number of exhibitions in Korea. Some exhibitions coordinated by Paik introduced John Cage,
Merce Cunningham Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...
, and Joseph Beuys to Korea's art scene; others brought recent developments in video art and interactivity from Europe and the U.S. to Korea, in ways that bridged similar activities in Korea's art scene. Paik was also involved in bringing the 1993
Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...
to Seoul, as well as in founding the Gwangju Biennale and establishing the Korea Pavilion at the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
. Beginning with his artistic career in Germany in the 1960s—and on through his immigration to the U.S., later involvement in South Korea's art scene, and broader participation in international artistic currents—Paik's transnational path informed both his identity and his artistic practice in complex ways. At the outset of his career in Europe, Paik declared, "The yellow peril! C'est moi," in a 1964 pamphlet, a reference to his Asian identity that, as the curators June Yap and Lee Soo-yon have noted, appropriates a xenophobic phrase coined by Kaiser Wilhelm II as Paik referenced his Asian identity. Curator John Hanhardt observed that certain works recall Paik's lived experience of transnational immigration from South Korea to Japan, Germany, and on the U.S.; one example is ''Guadalcanal Requiem'' (1977), which invokes "the history and memories of World War II in the Pacific." Hanhardt has also concluded that—though "no single story" of Nam June Paik can capture the complexity of who he was and the places that shaped him—as Paik grew in public, transcultural, and global recognition, he held onto the significance of his birthplace in Korea. Similarly, the curator Lee Sook-kyung has called identifying what is Korea, Japanese, American, or German about Nam June Paik to be a "futile" effort, yet she has observed that Paik consistently emphasized his Korean heritage and "Mongolian" lineages.


Works

Nam June Paik then began participating in the
Neo-Dada Neo-Dada was an art movement with audio, visual and literary manifestations that had similarities in method or intent with earlier Dada artwork. It sought to close the gap between art and daily life, and was a combination of playfulness, iconoclas ...
art movement, known as
Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...
, which was inspired by the composer
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...
and his use of everyday sounds and noises in his music. He made his big debut in 1963 at an exhibition known as ''Exposition of Music-Electronic Television'' at the Galerie Parnass in
Wuppertal Wuppertal (; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany, with a population of 355,000. Wuppertal is the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and List of cities in Germany by population, 17th-largest in Germany. It ...
in which he scattered televisions everywhere and used magnets to alter or distort their images. In a 1960 piano performance in
Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...
, he played Chopin, threw himself on the piano and rushed into the audience, attacking Cage and pianist David Tudor by cutting their clothes with scissors and dumping shampoo on their heads. Cage suggested Paik look into Zen Buddhism. Though Paik was already well familiar with Buddhism from his childhood in Korea and Japan, Cage's interest in Zen philosophy compelled Paik to re-examine his own intellectual and cultural foundation. During 1963 and 1964 the engineers Hideo Uchida and Shuya Abe showed Paik how to interfere with the flow of electrons in color TV sets, work that led to the Abe-Paik video synthesizer, a key element in his future TV work. In 1965, Paik acquired a
Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
TCV-2010, a combination unit that contained the first consumer-market video-tape recorder CV-2000. Paik used this VTR to record television broadcasts, frequently manipulating the qualities of the broadcast, and the magnetic tape in process. In 1967 Sony introduced the first truly portable VTR, which featured a portable power supply and handheld camera, the Sony Portapak. With this, Paik could both move and record things, for it was the first portable video and audio recorder. From there, Paik became an international celebrity, known for his creative and entertaining works. In a notorious 1967 incident, Moorman was arrested for going topless while performing in Paik's ''Opera Sextronique''. Two years later, in 1969, they performed ''TV Bra for Living Sculpture'', in which Moorman wore a bra with small TV screens over her breasts. Throughout this period it was Paik's goal to bring music up to speed with art and literature, and make sex an acceptable theme. One of his Fluxus concept works ("Playable Pieces") instructs the performer to "Creep into the Vagina of a living Whale." Of the "Playable Pieces," the only one actually to have been performed was by Fluxus composer Joseph Byrd ("Cut your left forearm a distance of ten centimeters.") in 1964 at UCLA's New Music Workshop. In 1971, Paik and Moorman made ''TV Cello'', a cello formed out of three television sets stacked up on top of each other and some cello strings. During Moorman's performance with the object, she drew her bow across the "cello," as images of her and other cellists playing appeared on the screens. Paik and Moorman created another TV Cello in 1976 as a Kaldor Public Art Project in Sydney, Australia. In 1974 Nam June Paik used the term "super highway" in application to telecommunications, which gave rise to the opinion that he may have been the author of the phrase " Information Superhighway". In fact, in his 1974 proposal "Media Planning for the Postindustrial Society – The 21st Century is now only 26 years away" to the
Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...
he used a slightly different phrase, "electronic super highway":
"The building of new electronic super highways will become an even huger enterprise. Assuming we connect New York with Los Angeles by means of an electronic telecommunication network that operates in strong transmission ranges, as well as with continental satellites, wave guides, bundled coaxial cable, and later also via laser beam fiber optics: the expenditure would be about the same as for a
Moon landing A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, including both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was Luna 2 in 1959. In 1969 Apollo 11 was the first cr ...
, except that the benefits in term of by-products would be greater.
Also in the 1970s, Paik imagined a global community of viewers for what he called a Video Common Market which would disseminate videos freely. In 1978, Paik collaborated with Dimitri Devyatkin to produce a light hearted comparison of life in two major cities, ''Media Shuttle: New York-Moscow'' on
WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as Thirteen (stylized as THIRTEEN), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the Educ ...
. The video is held in museum collections around the world. Possibly Paik's most famous work, '' TV Buddha'' is a video installation depicting a Buddha statue viewing its own live image on a closed circuit TV. Paik created numerous versions of this work using different statues, the first version is from 1974. Another piece, ''Positive Egg'', displays a white egg on a black background. In a series of video monitors, increasing in size, the image on the screen becomes larger and larger, until the egg itself becomes an abstract, unrecognizable shape. In ''Video Fish'', from 1975, a series of aquariums arranged in a horizontal line contain live fish swimming in front of an equal number of monitors which show video images of other fish. Paik completed an installation in 1993 in the NJN Building in Trenton, NJ. This work was commissioned under the public building arts inclusion act of 1978. The installation's media is neon lights incorporated around video screens. This particular piece is currently non-operational, though there are plans to make necessary upgrades/repairs to restore it to working order. During the New Year's Day celebration on January 1, 1984, he aired '' Good Morning, Mr. Orwell,'' a live link between
WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as Thirteen (stylized as THIRTEEN), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the Educ ...
New York,
Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
Paris, and South Korea. With the participation of
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...
,
Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( ; ; ), was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, ...
,
Laurie Anderson Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson (born June 5, 1947) is an American avant-garde artist, musician and filmmaker whose work encompasses performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and sculpting,Amirkhanian, Cha ...
,
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( ; ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and Aesthetics, art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism and sociology. With Heinrich Böll, , Caroline Tisdall, Rober ...
,
Merce Cunningham Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...
,
Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...
and Peter Orlovsky, George Plimpton, and other artists, Paik showed that
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
's Big Brother had not arrived. As the curator Suh Jinsuk has observed, after returning to Korea in 1984, Nam June Paik increasingly explored symbols of global exchange with Asia, such as the Silk Road and Eurasia. Moreover, as Paik became involved in Korea's art scene, he spearheaded projects that drew upon his connections with business and government circles in South Korea. ''Bye Bye Kipling'', a tape that mixed live events from Seoul, South Korea; Tokyo, Japan; and New York, USA, demonstrates this new phase in Paik's practice. Broadcast on the occasion of the Asia Games in Seoul, ''Bye Bye Kipling'''s title referenced a poem by Rudyard Kipling, "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet," as it fostered collaborations such as between the American artist
Keith Haring Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the Graffiti in New York City, New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual l ...
and the Japan-based fashion designer
Issey Miyake was a Japanese fashion designer. He was known for his technology-driven clothing designs, exhibitions and fragrances, such as '' L'eau d'Issey'', which became his best-known product. Early life and education Miyake was born on 22 April 1938 i ...
. As curator Lee Sooyon has argued, ''Bye Bye Kipling'' also contributed to the Korea government's agendas of "the advancement and internationalization of culture" by bringing together video sketches of shaman rituals and Korean drum dancers with Seoul's "economic miracle" and the bustling business of
Namdaemun Market Namdaemun Market () is a large traditional market in Seoul, South Korea. It is located next to Namdaemun, the main southern gate to the old city. In 1988, Paik installed '' The More, The Better'' in the atrium of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon. A giant tower, the work is made of 1003 monitors—a number that references October 3 as the day of Korea was founded by
Dangun Dangun or Tangun (; ), also known as Dangun Wanggeom (; ), was the legendary founder and first king of Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom. He founded the first kingdom around the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. He is said to be the "gra ...
, according to legend. '' The More, The Better'' appears prominently in Paik's 1988 satellite broadcast ''Wrap Around the World,'' which was made for the
Seoul Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and officially branded as Seoul 1988 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. 159 nations were represe ...
. The same year, he unveiled ''
Metrobot ''Metrobot'' is an electronic public art sculpture designed by Nam June Paik. At the time of its unveiling in 1988, it was Paik's first outdoor sculpture and his largest. Since 2014, it has stood in front of the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) on ...
'', his largest statue and his first outdoor installation, at the
Contemporary Arts Center The Contemporary Arts Center (abbreviated CAC) is a contemporary art museum in Cincinnati, Ohio and one of the first contemporary art institutions in the United States. The CAC is a non-collecting museum that focuses on new developments in pain ...
in
Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
. For the German pavilion at the 1993 Venice Biennale, Paik created an array of robot sculptures of historic figures, such as
Catherine the Great Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter I ...
and the legendary founder of Korea,
Dangun Dangun or Tangun (; ), also known as Dangun Wanggeom (; ), was the legendary founder and first king of Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom. He founded the first kingdom around the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. He is said to be the "gra ...
, so as to emphasize the connections between Europe and Asia. Paik's 1995 piece '' Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii'', is on permanent display at the Lincoln Gallery of the
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...
. Paik was known for making robots out of television sets. These were constructed using pieces of wire and metal, but later Paik used parts from radio and television sets. Despite his stroke, in 2000, he created a millennium satellite broadcast entitled ''Tiger is Alive'' and in 2004 designed the installation of monitors and video projections Global Groove 2004 for the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin.


Exhibitions

Paik's first exhibition, entitled "Exposition of Music – Electronic Television", was held in 1963 at Galerie Parnass in
Wuppertal Wuppertal (; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany, with a population of 355,000. Wuppertal is the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and List of cities in Germany by population, 17th-largest in Germany. It ...
, Germany. A retrospective of Paik's work was held at the
Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
in the spring of 1982. Major retrospectives of Paik's work have been organized by
Kölnischer Kunstverein The Kölnischer Kunstverein is an art museum in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia state, Germany. It is named after the historical art society of the same name. The ''Kölnischer Kunstverein'' was a " Kunstverein" established in Cologne in 1839 ...
(1976), Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris (1978),
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...
in New York City (1982),
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...
(1989), and the
Kunsthalle Basel Kunsthalle Basel is a contemporary art gallery in Basel, Switzerland. As Switzerland's oldest and still most active institution for contemporary art established in the year of 1872, Kunsthalle Basel forms a vital part of Basel's cultural centre ...
(1991). Nam June Paik's first major retrospective in Korea, ''Video Time – Video Space'', opened at the Gwacheon location of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea on July 30, 1992. Although the exhibition lasted merely 34 days, it saw 117,961 paid visitors; the unofficial visitor count reached nearly 200,000. The exhibition involved the participation of major entities of media and business—including the Korea Broadcasting Corporation and Samsung Electronics. The exhibition presented approximately 150 artworks, beginning with '' The More, The Better'' as the exhibition's starting point. According to Lee Sooyon, Paik carefully tailored the exhibition's works to his audiences. Knowing that Korea's audience was not familiar with international art world conversations of video art, Fluxus, and performance art, Paik selected artworks that appealed to popular subjects of Korean culture and history. The exhibition also featured works from Paik's ''TV Buddha'' and ''My Faust'' series. A final retrospective of his work was held in 2000 at the
Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: * The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Ne ...
in New York City, with the commissioned site-specific installation ''Modulation in Sync'' (2000) integrating the unique space of the museum into the exhibition itself. This coincided with a downtown gallery showing of video artworks by his wife Shigeko Kubota, mainly dealing with his recovery from a stroke he had in 1996. In 2011, an exhibition centered on Paik's video sculpture ''One Candle, Candle Projection'' (1988–2000) opened at the
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...
in
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
Another retrospective was mounted at the
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...
in Washington, D.C., in 2012–2013. As a leading expert in Paik's work, art historian John G. Hanhardt was the curator for three landmark exhibitions devoted to the artist, the ones at the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Paik's work also appeared in important group exhibitions such as São Paulo Biennale (1975),
Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...
(1977, 1981, 1983, 1987, and 1989),
Documenta Documenta (often stylized documenta) is an Art exhibition, exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. Documenta was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgarte ...
6 and 8 (1977 and 1987), and
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
(1984 and 1993). From April 24, 2015, to September 7, 2015, Paik's works ''T.V. Clock'', ''9/23/69: Experiment with David Atwood,'' and ''ETUDE1'' were displayed at "Watch This! Revelations in Media Art" at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Although Paik's pioneering experimentalism and foresight of the important role media would continue to play in society has been examined across many exhibitions, for a 2019 exhibition, the
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...
turned its focus upon Paik as a collaborator. This exhibition later travelled to the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...
, where it was presented at the first West-coast retrospective of Paik's work from May 8, 2021, through October 3, 2021. It was later presented at the
National Gallery Singapore , logo = National_Gallery_Singapore_logo.svg , image = Interior_of_the_National_Gallery_Singapore.jpg , caption = Interior of the National Gallery of Singapore with the airy corridors on 4 levels, the staircases a ...
from 10 December 2021 to 27 March 2022, a first time that such an expansive and ambitious presentation of Paik's oeuvre was presented in Southeast Asia In late 2022, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, will present an exhibition that focuses on Paik as cultural organizer who made an immense impact upon South Korea's art scene; it aims to bring into greater focus Paik's relationship with national identity.


Archive

Given its largely antiquated technology, Paik's oeuvre poses a unique conservation challenge. In 2006, Nam June Paik's estate asked a group of museums for proposals on how each would use the archive. Out of a group that included the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
, the
J. Paul Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California, United States, housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. It is operated by the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthies ...
, the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...
and the
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...
, it chose the
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...
. The archive includes Paik's early writings on art history, history and technology; correspondence with other artists and collaborators like Charlotte Moorman, John Cage,
George Maciunas George Maciunas (; ; November 8, 1931 Kaunas – May 9, 1978 Boston, Massachusetts) was a Lithuanian American artist, art historian, and art organizer who was the founding member and central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of ...
and Wolf Vostell; and a complete collection of videotapes used in his work, as well as production notes, television work, sketches, notebooks, models and plans for videos. It also covers early-model televisions and video projectors, radios, record players, cameras and musical instruments, toys, games, folk sculptures and the desk where he painted in his SoHo studio. Curator John Hanhardt, an old friend of Paik, said of the archive: "It came in great disorder, which made it all the more complicated. It is not like his space was perfectly organized. I think the archive is like a huge memory machine. A wunderkammer, a wonder cabinet of his life." Hanhardt describes the archives in the catalog for the 2012 Smithsonian show in the book ''Nam June Paik: Global Visionary''. Michael Mansfield, associate curator of film and media arts at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, supervised the complex installation of several hundred CRT TV sets, the wiring to connect them all, and the software and servers to drive them. He developed an app on his phone to operate every electronic artwork on display. Many of Paik's early works and writings are collected in a volume edited by
Judson Rosebush Judson Rosebush (b. October 1, 1947, Wooster, Ohio) is a director and producer of multimedia products and computer animation, an author, artist and Media studies, media theorist. He is the founder of Digital_Effects_(studio), Digital Effects Inc. ...
titled ''Nam June Paik: Videa 'n' Videology 1959–1973,'' published by the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, in 1974.


Influence

As a pioneer of
video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. V ...
his influence was from a student he met at
CalArts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both the ...
named Sharon Grace he described her as "pure genius" from the moment they met. The two met while she was filming fellow students at random with her Sony Portapak as an artistic
sociological Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociology was coined in ...
practice akin to the artist in the studio. This led to '' TV Buddha'' and people's model of the internet as we know it today with such art pieces as "Send / Receive". The artwork and ideas of Nam June Paik were a major influence on late 20th-century art and continue to inspire a new generation of artists.
Contemporary artists This is a list of artists who create contemporary art, i.e., those whose peak of activity can be situated somewhere between the 1970s (the advent of postmodernism) and the present day. Artists on this list meet the following criteria: *The person ...
considered to be influenced by Paik include
Christian Marclay Christian Marclay (born January 11, 1955) is a visual artist and composer. He holds both American and Swiss nationality. Marclay's work explores connections between sound art, noise music, photography, video art, film and digital animations. A p ...
, Jon Kessler,
Cory Arcangel Cory Arcangel (born May 25, 1978) is an American post-conceptual artist who makes work in many different media, including drawing, music, video, performance art, and video game modifications, for which he is best known. Arcangel often uses th ...
, Ryan Trecartin and Haroon Mirza. Nam June Paik's work was first screened in South Korea on March 20, 1974, at the United States Information Center in Seoul. The artist Park Hyunki was among the audience (which featured Paik's Global Groove); the screening notably inspired Park Hyunki to first experiment with video. A documentary film directed by Amanda Kim about Paik's life entitled '' Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV'' was released in 2023.


Art market

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...
holds the auction record for Paik's work since it achieved $646,896 in Hong Kong in 2007 for his ''Wright Brothers'', a 1995 propeller-plane-like tableau comprising 14 TV monitors. In 2015,
Gagosian Gallery The Gagosian Gallery is a modern and contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. As of 2024, Gagosian employs 300 people at 19 exhibiti ...
acquired the right to represent Paik's artistic estate. An
NFT A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchai ...
-based artwork based on Global Groove was turned into an
NFT A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchai ...
-based artwork offered through
Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...
, the global art auction house It sold for $56,250.


Personal life

Paik moved to New York City in 1964. In 1977, he married the video artist Shigeko Kubota. After marrying Kubota and living in the United States for several decades, Paik became a
naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-national of a country acquires the nationality of that country after birth. The definition of naturalization by the International Organization for Migration of the ...
American citizen. In 1996, Paik had a stroke, which paralyzed his left side. He used a wheelchair the last decade of his life, though he was able to walk with assistance. He died on January 29, 2006, in
Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
, Florida, due to complications from a
stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...
. Paik was survived by his wife, his brother, Ken Paik, and a nephew, Ken Paik Hakuta, an inventor and television personality best known for creating the
Wacky WallWalker The Wacky WallWalker was a toy molded out of a sticky elastomer. It was shaped similar to an octopus and when thrown against a wall would "walk" its way down. It was a hugely popular toy in the early 1980s. Before its introduction in the United S ...
toy, and who managed Paik's studios in New York City. In one of his last interviews, Paik voiced his belief that to be buried in a cemetery would be futile, and expressed a desire for his ashes to be scattered around the world, and for some of his ashes to be buried in Korea. Paik was a lifelong
Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
who never smoked nor drank alcoholic beverages, and never drove a car.


Collections

Public collections that hold or have exhibited work by Nam June Paik include: * The
Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is a museum institution located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. It has list of largest art museums, one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it cove ...
(Detroit, USA), * The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul, South Korea), * Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art (Seoul, South Korea), * The
Nam June Paik Art Center Nam June Paik Art Center is an art gallery in Giheung District, Yongin, Seoul Capital Area, South Korea. It opened in 2008 and hosts both permanent and temporary exhibitions. It is named after the Korean American artist Nam June Paik, whose work i ...
(Yongin, South Korea), * The
Ackland Art Museum The Ackland Art Museum is a museum and academic unit of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was founded through the bequest of William Hayes Ackland (1855–1940) to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is locat ...
(University of North Carolina, USA), * The
Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum located adjacent to Delaware Park, Buffalo, New York, United States. The museum shows modern art and contemporary art. It is directly opposite Buff ...
(Buffalo, USA), * Mercedes-Benz Art Collection (Berlin, Germany), *
Fukuoka Art Museum is an art museum in Fukuoka, Japan. It contains a notable collection of Western and Asian art, and exhibits various temporary exhibitions. In November 2010 it hosted a large exhibition of Marc Chagall's work. '' The Madonna of Port Lligat'' by S ...
(Fukuoka, Japan), * The
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed ...
(Washington D.C., USA), * The
Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. It has one of the largest single co ...
(Honolulu, USA), * Kunsthalle zu Kiel (University of Kiel, Germany), *
Kunstmuseum St. Gallen Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (English: ''Art Museum St. Gallen''), is a Swiss art museum founded in 1877 and located in St. Gallen, Switzerland. It is an important museum within Eastern Switzerland because of their expansive European art collection. ...
(St. Gallen, Switzerland), *
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is the art collection of the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, in Düsseldorf. United by this institution are three different exhibition venues: the ''K20'' at Grabbeplatz, the ''K21'' in th ...
(Düsseldorf, Germany), *
Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst The Ludwig Forum for International Art is a museum for modern art in Aachen. It is based on the Ludwig Collection, which was brought together by the Aachen collector couple Irene and Peter Ludwig, and is supported by the Peter and Irene Ludwig F ...
(Aachen, Germany), * Musée d'Art Moderne (Paris, France), *
Museum Wiesbaden The Museum Wiesbaden is a two-branch museum of Art museum, art and Natural history museum, natural history in the Hesse, Hessian capital of Wiesbaden, Germany. It is one of the three Hessian State museums, in addition to the museums in Hessian ...
(Wiesbaden, Germany), * The
National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...
(Canberra, Australia), *
National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited art mu ...
(Melbourne, Australia), * The Berardo Collection Museum (Lisbon, Portugal), * National Museum of Contemporary Art (Athens, Greece), * Palazzo Cavour (Turin, Italy), * The
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (, ; , ) are a group of art museums in Brussels, Belgium. They are part of the institutions of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) and consist of six museums: the Oldmasters Museum, the ...
(Brussels, Belgium), * The
Stedelijk Museum The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
(Amsterdam, The Netherlands), * Schleswig-Holstein Museum (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany), * The Smart Museum of Art (University of Chicago, USA), *
Smith College Museum of Art The Smith College Museum of Art, abbreviated SCMA, is the art museum of Smith College, located in Northampton, Massachusetts, Northampton, Massachusetts. First established in 1870, the museum is part of the American Alliance of Museums, Five Coll ...
(Northhampton, USA), * Hessel Museum of Art at
Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...
, (Annandale-on-Hudson, USA) * The
Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...
(Washington D.C., USA), * The
Stuart Collection The Stuart Collection is a collection of public art on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. Founded in 1981, the Stuart Collection's goal is to spread commissioned sculpture throughout the campus, including both traditional scu ...
(University of California, USA), * The
Dayton Art Institute The Dayton Art Institute (DAI) is a museum of fine arts in Dayton, Ohio, Dayton, Ohio, United States. The Dayton Art Institute has been rated one of the top 10 best art museums in the United States for children. The museum also ranks in the top 3% ...
(Dayton, USA) * The
Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill, Minneapolis, Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in ...
(Minneapolis, USA), * The
Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art The Cornell University Library is the library system of Cornell University. As of 2014, it holds over eight million printed volumes and over a million ebooks. More than 90 percent of its current 120,000 periodical titles are available onl ...
at
Cornell University Library The Cornell University Library is the library system of Cornell University. As of 2014, it holds over eight million printed volumes and over a million ebooks. More than 90 percent of its current 120,000 Periodical literature, periodical ti ...
, (Ithaca, USA), * The
Worcester Art Museum The Worcester Art Museum houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. The museum opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Its holdings include Roman mosaics, Europe ...
(Worcester, USA), *
Reynolda House Museum of American Art The Reynolda House Museum of American Art is an art museum located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Built in 1917 by Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband R. J. Reynolds, founder of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, it displays a collecti ...
(Winston-Salem, USA). * Colección SOLO (Madrid, Spain) *
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...
(New York, USA) * The Bass Museum of Art (Miami, USA)


Honours and awards

* 1991:
Goslarer Kaiserring Since 1975, the Goslarer Kaiserring award has been given, by the city of Goslar, to a distinguished international artist of modern and contemporary art. The award is for artists whose work has given the contemporary art significant impetus. The pr ...
* 1993: Golden Lion,
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
(With Hans Haacke) * 1995:
Ho-Am Prize in the Arts The Ho-Am Prize was established in 1990 by Lee Kun-hee, Kun-Hee Lee, the Chairman of Samsung, with a vision to create a new corporate culture that continues the noble spirit of public service espoused by the late Chairman Byung-chull Lee, founder ...
* 1998:
Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy The Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy is awarded once a year by the Inamori Foundation for lifetime achievements in the arts and philosophy. The Prize is one of three Kyoto Prize categories; the others are the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technolog ...
* 2000:
Order of Cultural Merit (Korea) The Order of Cultural Merit () is one of South Korea's orders of merit. It is awarded by the President of South Korea for "outstanding meritorious services in the fields of culture and art in the interest of promoting the national culture and n ...
* 2001: Wilhelm Lehmbruck Prize, awarded by the City of Duisburg * 2001: Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award, International Sculpture Center. * 2004: Edward MacDowell Medal in the Arts


Bibliography

*


Notes


References


External links


Archivio ConzOfficial Website of Nam June PaikNam June Paik Archive at the Smithsonian American Art MuseumNam June Paik Art Center at Google Cultural Institute9/23 Paik-Abe videosynthesizer performance
from WGBH New Television Workshop archives, features short clip
Electronic Arts Intermix
includes a biography and description of major works
Nam June Paik biography @ MedienKunstNetz
The Chosun Ilbo, January 30, 2006.
Nam June Paik
in th
Video Data Bank
*
Tate: TateShots: Nam June Paik. 2011.
in
UbuWeb UbuWeb is a "a pirate shadow library consisting of hundreds of thousands of freely downloadable avant-garde artifacts." It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives. The site was created by ...
Sound ;Listening
UbuWeb: Nam June Paik
featuring ''Abschiedssymphonie'' and ''In Memoriam George Maciunas'' MP3s offline *''TV Cello'', Nam June Paik & Charlotte Moorman performance (MP3
part 1part 2
*''Concert for TV Cello and Videotapes'', Nam June Paik with Charlotte Moorman and Paul Garrin, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1982 (MP3
part 1
*MP
Variations on a Theme by Saint-Saens
Charlotte Moorman live at Mills College August 3, 1974 {{DEFAULTSORT:Paik, Nam June 1932 births 2006 deaths Artists from Seoul South Korean video artists South Korean contemporary artists Fluxus Kyoto laureates in Arts and Philosophy Kyunggi High School alumni Korean emigrants to the United States Mass media theorists University of Tokyo alumni South Korean performance artists Academic staff of Kunstakademie Düsseldorf Recipients of the Order of Cultural Merit (South Korea) Members of the Royal Academy of Belgium Suwon Baek clan Recipients of the Ho-Am Prize in the Arts