Draft Baek Nam-jun

Title	Nam June Paik, A Cultural Terrorist from Asia

1차 원고

A Cultural Terrorist from Asia

Nam June Paik (1932-2006) is a contemporary artist who is considered to be the founder of video art. Video art is an art form that uses video, television, and other electronic appliances as a medium of artistic expression. The birth of video art which is regarded as an extended concept of cinematic art, allowed art to take a form that is different from conventional painting or sculpture. Paik who created this artistic form that changed the landscape of contemporary art, is thus dubbed by international media as a “cultural terrorist from Asia.”

Nam June Paik was born in Seoul. He moved to Japan with his family in 1951 during the Korean War. He studied at the Department of Aesthetics at the University of Tokyo, but he was absorbed in music and philosophy. In 1957, Paik moved to Germany and studied Western architecture and music composition at the University of Munich, University of Cologne, and the Freiburg Conservatory.

During this period, Paik met the composer John Cage and was inspired by him. In 1959, he performed Hommage à John Cage: Music for Tape Recorder and Piano, in which he overturned a piano. Park also joined the Fluxus movement and presented various avant-garde and experimental performances. Fluxus is a radical international avant-garde movement that originated from Germany between the 1960s and the 1970s. Fluxus participants emphasized action over concept, content over form, and pursued mergence of art and everyday life.

Paik turned to visual art from pure electronic music when he discovered the immense possibilities of video expression. He claimed: “As collage technique replaced oil-paint, the cathode ray will replace the canvas.”

Exposition of Music-Electronic Television

Paik made his debut in 1963 at an exhibition entitled Exposition of Music-Electronic Television at the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, in which he presented his first video art work. The first video art work that was officially recorded in art history was released in 1965. It was Paik’s filming of Pope John Paul VI on his first visit to New York. Paik filmed the pope on Sony’s Partapack, the world’s first portable video camera, and showed it to public immediately afterword at Café au Go Go. At the time, he was experimenting with combining various forms of musical and visual materials in video media.

Paik collaborated with the cellist Charlotte Moorman on Cello Sonata No. 1 for Adults Only and Variation on a Theme by Saint Saëns, which combined music, performance and video. Their collaborative performance became an instant sensation. At the premiere of The Opera Sextronic in 1966, Moorman was arrested for indecent exposure when she played cello in the nude. This incident caused a great stir. As a result, however, the law was amended that legalized nudity in performance art.

Since 1974, Paik worked with video art instalments composed of a number of television monitors playing pre-produced video footages. Works from this period including TV Buddha, TV Garden, Moon is the Oldest TV, and Video Fish, won high acclaim for representing a new hybrid vitality in modern society.

Good Morning, Mr Orwell

What brought Paik an international fame was Good Morning, Mr. Orwell, broadcasted live worldwide on January 1, 1984, with satellite linking between WNET, a New York broadcasting station, and the Centre George Pompidou in Paris. The show reached around 25 million viewers around the world. Paik presented similar satellite shows entitled Bye Bye Kipling at the Seoul Asian Games in 1986 and Hands in Hand at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. At the 1993 Venice Biennale, Paik exhibited several works that displayed nomadic culture of northern Eurasia including The Rehabilitation of Genghis-Khan, Dangun, Scythian King and Equestrian People.

In 1996, Paik suffered from a stroke, which paralyzed his left side. Despite his condition, Paik carried on with his artistic activities, participating in the German video sculpture exhibition and the Basel International Art Fair. He also presented a remarkable body of new works using laser technology at an exhibition entitled The Worlds of Nam June Paik held in the Guggenheim in 2000. Jacob’s Ladder and Three Elements presented at the exhibition were examples of this new art form called laser art.

On January 29, 2006, Nam June Paik died at the age of 75 in his home in Miami. Upon his will, his ashes were scattered in South Korea, where he was born, the United States, where he died, and Germany, where he found art.

감수본

Paik Nam-jun, a “Cultural Terrorist” from Asia

Mr. Baek Nam-jun, internationally famed as Nam June Paik (1932-2006), was a modern Korean artist considered to be the founder of “video art”, which uses video, television, and other electronic appliances as a medium of artistic expression. The birth of video art, which is regarded as an extended concept of cinematic art, allowed artworks to take forms different from conventional painting or sculpture. Paik, who created this artistic form that changed the landscape of contemporary art, was thus once dubbed by international media as a “cultural terrorist from Asia.”

Nam June Paik was born in Seoul, but moved to Japan with his family in 1951 during the Korean War. He studied at the Department of Aesthetics at the University of Tokyo, but he was absorbed in music and philosophy. In 1957, he moved to Germany and studied Western architecture and music composition at the University of Munich, University of Cologne and the Freiburg Conservatory.

During this period, Paik met the composer John Cage and was inspired by him, and also joined the Fluxus radical international avant-garde movement and presented various avant-garde and experimental performances. He then turned to visual art from pure electronic music when he discovered the immense possibilities of video expression, claiming: “As collage technique replaced oil-paint, the cathode ray will replace the canvas.”

Paik made his public debut in 1963 at an exhibition entitled Exposition of Music-Electronic Television at the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, in which he presented his first video art work. Paik’s 1965 filming of Pope John Paul VI on his first visit to New York is considered the first video artwork that was officially recorded in art history . Paik filmed the pope on Sony’s Partapack, the world’s first portable video camera, and showed it to public immediately afterword at Café au Go Go. At the time, he was experimenting with combining various forms of musical and visual materials in video media.

Since 1974, Paik worked with video art instalments composed of a number of television monitors playing pre-produced video footages. Works from this period won high acclaim for representing a new hybrid vitality in modern society.

What brought Paik an international fame was Good Morning, Mr. Orwell, broadcasted live to around 25 million viewers worldwide on January 1, 1984, with satellite linking between WNET, a New York broadcasting station, and the Centre George Pompidou in Paris. He presented similar satellite shows entitled Bye Bye Kipling at the Seoul Asian Games in 1986 and Hands in Hand at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

In 1996, Paik suffered from a stroke, which paralyzed his left side. Despite his condition, he carried on with his artistic activities, presenting a remarkable body of new works using laser technology at an exhibition entitled The Worlds of Nam June Paik held in the Guggenheim in 2000. On January 29, 2006, he died at the age of 75 in his home in Miami. As according to his will, his ashes were scattered in South Korea, where he was born, the United States, where he died, and Germany, where he found art.