Nina_Harris

Artist Post: Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik is a digital Artist originally from Seoul, Korea. Paik was one of the first video artists to enter the art scene in the 1960's. Named "The Father of Video Art" Paik had his first one-artist exhibition at the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, Germany. The exhibition featured prepared television sets that altered the look and presentation of the television sets. Paik was one of the first artist to use a portable video camcorder. Paik is famous for many of his interesting television manipulations such as, his sculptures TV Buddha, and TV Cello; and his installations TV Garden, Video Fish.

Nam June Paik was born in 1932 in Seoul, Korea. His family was a very wealthy industrial family. The Korean war forced Paik and his family to leave Korea in 1950. He and his family first moved to Hong Kong then Japan. Paik Graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1956. After graduation Paik moved to Germany in pursuit of his musical career. It was there that Paik first met John Cage and George Maciunas and became a member of the neo-dada Fluxus movement. After his first successful exhibition in 1963, Paik moved to the United States and landed in New York where he continued his career in Video Art.

The work that interests me the most of Num June Paik is his Art that involves music. I have always believed that music and art have the same principles behind them. When art and music are combined they create a piece that is even more powerful than either could be on there own. Paik did a lot of work involving music. His very first exhibition was a show called Exposition of Music – Electronic Television. In this exhibition he had four ‘prepared’ pianos, mechanical sound objects, several record and tape installations, twelve modified TV sets, and the head of a freshly slaughtered ox above the entrance awaited visitors. Another musically inspired piece he did was called TV Cello. This work used three television sets that displayed the performance and other professional cello performances. Charlotte Moorman played the one stringed cello as it displayed the performance.