"Nam June Paik: Global Visionary" Debuts Dec. 13 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
The artwork and ideas of Nam June Paik were a major influence on late 20th-century art and continue to inspire a new generation of artists. "Nam June Paik: Global Visionary" will offer an unprecedented view into the artist's creative method by featuring key artworks that convey Paik's extraordinary accomplishments as a major international artist as well as material drawn from the Nam June Paik Archive, which was acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum from the artist's estate in 2009.
"Nam June Paik: Global Visionary" will be on view at the museum's main building in Washington, D.C., from Dec. 13 through Aug. 11, 2013. John G. Hanhardt, senior curator for media arts and the leading expert on Paik and his global influence, is organizing the exhibition with the assistance of Michael Mansfield, associate curator of film and media arts.
"The Smithsonian American Art Museum is the international center for the study of Nam June Paik's enormous achievements," said Elizabeth Broun, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. "Through acquisition of the artist's personal archive, we offer an unparalleled window onto the artist's creative career."
Korean-born Paik (1932-2006), known as the "father of video art," almost single-handedly transformed video into an artist's medium through his sculptures, installations, videotapes and television projects. Paik is recognized worldwide for his innovative, media-based artwork that is grounded in the practices of avant-garde music and performance art.His art and ideas embodied a radical new vision for an art form that he knew would be embraced around the world and that would change visual culture.
"The exhibition will give viewers the opportunity to experience a full portrait of the artist and also recognizes Paik's desire to astonish through a playful aesthetic," said Hanhardt. "It will have surprises both for those viewers who have never experienced Paik and for those who feel they know his art."
The exhibition includes nearly 70 artworks and more than 120 items from the archive.Several rare artworks borrowed from private and public collections in the United States and abroad, including "Urmusik" (1961) from Museum Moderner Kunst in Vienna, "TV Garden" (1974) from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and "Whitney Buddha Complex" (1982) from the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College will be presented. Paik's rarely seen installation "Moon Projection with E Moon and Birds" (1996), on loan from the Paik Estate, will be on display. Three exceptional artworks from the museum's collection will be included: "Zen for TV" (1963/1976), "Megatron/Matrix" (1995) and "Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii" (1995).
"Nam June Paik: Global Visionary" will offer the extraordinary range of the artist's accomplishments and the complexity of his ideas. It will feature his personal history through thematic groupings that draw on the resources of the Nam June Paik Archive. Paik's writings and the materials he collected reveal the influences of Asian and Western philosophy, as well as developments in technology and science. The museum will use these materials to show the development of his innovative and radical conceptualization of the future roles of communication technologies in the expanding global media culture.
