Nam June Paik Art Center celebrates 90th year since birth of artist with 'Nam June Paik, Super Baroque'

This year is a special one — it's the 90th anniversary of the avant-garde artist Nam June Paik's birth — and to celebrate, the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi, is presenting "Nam June Paik, Super Baroque." Paik was born in 1932 and..

"Sistine Chapel" (1993) by Nam June Paik [NAM JUNE PAIK ART CENTER]

This year is a special one — it’s the 90th anniversary of the avant-garde artist Nam June Paik’s birth — and to celebrate, the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi, is presenting “Nam June Paik, Super Baroque.”

Paik was born in 1932 and passed away in 2006.

The exhibition aims to provide visitors and fans of the late artist an opportunity to see Paik’s large-scale media installations. Paik was ahead of his time, having utilized futuristic technology like lasers and CRT projectors and fusing them with Baroque-inspired motifs.

"Video Chandelier No. 1" (1989) by Paik [NAM JUNE PAIK ART CENTER]

Dubbed “analog immersion” due to the fact that they involved Paik projecting low-resolution videos onto architectural spaces such as a European church ceiling, these works elicit Paik’s own artistic aesthetics, the exhibition’s curator Lee Soo-young explained.

Paik used a wide array of materials, like televisions, magnets and candles, and combined them into entirely new creative pieces of art that go back to the future, so to speak.

“Video Chandelier No. 1” (1989), quite literally a chandelier made from Christmas LED lights and cathode-ray tube televisions, and “Candle TV” (1965, 1969), an empty steel TV with a lit candle placed inside, are examples of using old technology to create something new.

For the latter, even if the candle burns out, it only has to be replaced with a newly lit one, leaving no need to worry about the television breaking down.

″Candle TV″ (1965(1969)) by Paik [NAM JUNE PAIK ART CENTER]

“To call ‘Candle TV’ in another name, it is a never-breakdown TV. I wanted to make a television that never breaks down unlike a cathode-ray tube television that keeps breaking. You can watch this TV even in blackout,” Paik said in 1988.

“Sistine Chapel” (1993), which was initially exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1993 when Paik represented the German Pavilion and was awarded the Golden Lion, is a reinterpretation of Michelangelo’s murals on the actual Sistine Chapel in Vatican City.

″Three Elements: Circle, Square, Triangle″ (1999) by Paik [NAM JUNE PAIK ART CENTER]

It's said that Michelangelo painted the murals while standing on scaffolds some 20 meters (65.6 feet) high. Likewise, Paik built scaffolds in the center of the pavilion's building and attached some 40 projectors onto it, which in turn simultaneously screened multiple videos onto the walls, transforming it into a digital mural.

“It becomes not only a disco, but an intellectual experiment on how much information you can absorb,” Paik said in 1993.

“Super Baroque” continues until Jan. 24 next year. The Nam June Paik Art Center is open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is free.

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]