The Mercury News / By Randy McMullen

 

 

Nam June Paik’s installation “TV Garden” is part of a SFMOMA retrospective exhibit devoted to the influential Korean American artist.

 

 

Korean American artist Nam June Paik has been credited by many with founding the now-ubiquitous field of video art. In 1963, he stunned the art world with his first solo exhibit, “Exposition of Music — Electronic Television,” an interactive work in which viewers were invited to use magnets to alter the content on a series of modified TV sets.

 

He was also credited with coining the phrase “electronic super highway” to describe what he saw as the all-encompassing potential of telecommunications.

 

A musician as well as artist, his works — years ahead of their time — often combined music, TV and video images, technology, performance and viewer participation.

 

Now the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is presenting a major retrospective of the mischievous, wildly creative and groundbreaking artist, who died in 2006 at age 73.

 

“Nam June Paik” includes more than 200 works representing the entirety of the artist’s five-decade career, from his early musical compositions and fascination with televisions and TV images to his large video installations and works utilizing global satellite technology.

 

Oh, and don’t forget to meet the exhibit’s two engaging robots, one each devoted to composer John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham, two artists who were among Paik’s wildly creative collaborators.

 

A common theme of “Nam June Paik,” besides the artist’s irreverent comments on technology and mass communications, was the idea that art should connect varied forms of expression.

 

Officials say the exhibit, conceived and curated by SFMOMA and London’s Tate Modern museum, with input from Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the National Gallery Singapore, is the first major Paik show in the U.S. in more than 20 years — at a time when his insights and visions seem more relevant than ever.

 

 

 

 

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/05/12/sfmoma-plugs-in-with-exclusive-nam-june-paik-retrospective/