During this past week, I learned about Nam June Paik (남준백), the Korean artist known as the father of video art. He was born in South Korea in 1932 and had his first art exhibition, called “Exposition of Music - Electronic Television,” in Germany in 1963. He dedicated one of the exhibition rooms to new inventions with the TV equipment. At that time, no one had ever thought that TV could be used for any other purpose than mass transmission. He used 13 televisions and manipulated them to present deformed images or sounds in the form of an image. At the time, television was still an object of luxury and its use was only for mass distribution. The idea of using TVs as a kind of art was not even imagined by the most revolutionary artists of that time. At a time when live global broadcasting was not possible, Nam June Paik was directing “Good Morning, Ms. Orwell,” a live show for the cities of New York, San Francisco, and Paris. In addition to being an innovator in art, he was able to anticipate these technological revolutions that are now fundamental to life in the 21st century. “Good Morning, Ms. Orwell” was the world's first artistic satellite video art broadcast in 1984. It is an hour-long program with music and video art presentations in English and French. I was searching for his works because I needed to write a blog about Korean and Art. In his works, he seeks to transmit the idea of a connected and decentralized world. I found out that some of his works are in the Washington DC museum. When I go there, I will definitely visit the museum. I like the way he mixes art and technology and I hope to know more about this artist when I go to the museum. One of his works is called Superhighway. It is the work being shown in the first picture below. The other work is called Megatron/Matrix. Several TVs together form different kinds of images. Both works are in the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. I particularly identify with the works of Nam June Paik, because I'm not European either and I feel that art from other countries is always underrated.
Today I went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and there was a section called "American Art". I am American, but I am not from the United States. I'm Brazilian. I expected to see art from across the American continent, but I only saw art produced in the United States. The African and Asian sections were very small. In contrast, the European session was huge and separated by a period. I believe that to this day we continue to struggle to have more representation in everything, including art.
Changing the subject, this week, I'm going to start watching the Korean series that is famous around the world. The name is Squid Game. Also, I couldn't go to the Korean church today, but I will go after Fall break.
Comments
Beatriz,
I did not know that TV art was created by a Korean artist, how cool! The combination of art and technology is a concept that is still very new, so I am looking forward to seeing how much more it changes in the future, especially with the presence of Metaverse and NFT's on the rise. When I went to Korea during my study abroad experience, I also saw many museums and exhibits that utilize this TV art sequence, (way more than the U.S.), so your post explains a lot about why this was the case.