#namjunepaik

Kicking off the month of May for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month!

Carlos Villa : worlds in collision Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2021] HOLLIS number: 99155985964903941

Bruce and Norman Yonemoto : memory, matter, and modern romance Los Angeles, Calif. : Fellows of Contemporary Art : Japanese American National Museum ; Santa Monica : Distributed by Ram Publications, 1999 HOLLIS number: 990081800110203941

We Are in Open Circuits: Writings by Nam June Paik Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2019] HOLLIS number: 99153836469503941

Miyoko Ito: Heart of Hearts New York? : Pre-Echo, 2023 HOLLIS number: 99157645381703941

Obra de Nam June Paik, pioneiro da videoarte. "Sfera/Punto eletrónico"

Nam June Paik nasceu a 20 de Junho de 1932. Era um artista coreano.

Integrante do Grupo Fluxus na década de 1960, Paik manteve um intercâmbio criativo com artistas de múltiplas áreas, como os compositores Karlheinz Stockhausen e John Cage, os artistas conceituais Joseph Beuys e Wolf Vostell, a violoncelista Charlotte Moorman e a performer Laurie Anderson, entre outros. Paik usava o vídeo como meio, trazendo para sua arte inovações tecnológicas do período, como a Sony Portapak, primeira câmera de vídeo portátil do mercado, lançada em 1965.

Descobri esta obra depois de criar a minha. Encontrei alguns pontos em comum. Achei interessante ser de um artista coreano uma vez que muitos dos estudos sobre a relação da imagem com o bem-estar são também da Corea.

Esta obra é composta por um disco e cinco pinturas a laser, três bolas de futebol e 26 monitores formam o objeto Sfera/Punto eletrônico (1990-1992), do sul-coreano Nam June Paik. Pioneiro na incorporação da tecnologia e da interatividade no universo da arte e integrante do Fluxus, o artista, que morreu em 2006, ganha retrospectiva no Oi Futuro Flamengo (Rio de Janeiro).

Theatre for Poor Man, Nam June Paik, 1961, MoMA: Drawings and Prints

The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Gift Size: sheet: 1 13/16 x 2 9/16" (4.6 x 6.5 cm) Medium: Offset lithograph

Untitled, Nam June Paik, 1980, HAM: Sculpture

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of the Hakuta Family Size: 40 × 40 cm (15 3/4 × 15 3/4 in.) Medium: Pastel on wood

Triangle, Trinity, Nam June Paik, 1998, Brooklyn Museum: Contemporary Art

Size: each sheet: 15 3/4 x 19 3/4 in. (40.0 x 50.2 cm); each image: 11 15/16 x 17 1/8 in. (30.2 x 43.5 cm) Medium: Screenprint, off-set lithograph, collage

07/04/2020 - 08/04/2020

Walking through an almost empty Amsterdam at night I came across an advertisement for the exhibition of Nam June Paik "the future is now" at the Stedelijk Museum. When I was still in secondary school I needed to write an essay about Paik for my art history class, and where everyone in my class was reluctant to write an essay I indeed was very excited. I had seen one of Paik works before the TV-Buddha at Stedelijk Museum. And although I did not know a lot about art or Nam June Paik by that time I still really enjoyed writing for once an essay about something that genuinely interests me.

Scrolling down my Instagram feed I came across a picture of the same advertisement but this time someone had written the words "Stay at home" over it. This made me think about the essay I had written. In my essay, I talk about one of the most well-known works of Paik named "Electronic Superhighway".

The Electronic Superhighway is a large installation, constructed with 336 televisions, 50 DVD players, 3750 feet of cable, and 575 feet of multicolored neon tubing. It is an art piece that leaves spectators often impressed with its bright colors, flashing tv screens and sounds.

Paik moved to the United States in 1964. During this time the superhighways were just introduced. These highways offered people the opportunity to explore all parts of the nation by car. The flashing images on the TV screens give the illusion that you are viewing the country through the window of a moving car. This makes it hard to absorb any details, resulting in what we now know as "information overload"

Paik represents Amerika as a multi-cultural country. This he does by connecting every state with its own video. The video content is based on Paik's concept of the different states and it is suggesting how our image of America has always been formed by media outlets such as film and television.  Around the monitors, the neon tubing resembles all the different states and its cultures but the colors could also resemble the glowing neon signs that are often found by motels or restaurants on the side of the superhighways.

With this work, Paik is expressing the vision he had for the future. A future in which communication would be without boundaries because of its advanced technology. A future in which information can be shared faster and can eventually lead to information overload.

With all of us stuck at home because of the COVID-19 situation, I feel like everyone can relate to this piece of art. The way we communicate with each other is almost always online nowadays, I've never been video calling so often in my life. And if however we still communicate with each other in real life it feels very surrealistic. Besides that everywhere you go you are confronted with COVID-19. If you turn on your TV, open your social media's but also while doing "normal" things such as groceries at your local supermarket. I feel like there is an information overload on this topic. There is no escaping it.

“In the early days, when they thought this epidemic was much like other epidemics, religion held its ground. But once these people realized their instant peril, they gave their thoughts to pleasure. And all the hideous fears that stamp their faces in the daytime are transformed in the fiery, dusty nightfall into a sort of hectic exaltation, an unkempt freedom fevering in their blood.”

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