Nam June Paik: When He was in Seoul

GALLERY HYUNDAI is hosting an exhibition, Nam June Paik: When He was in Seoul, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the death of Nam June Paik, the founder of video art. This exhibition presents a selection of 40 of Nam June Paik’s major works which he left in Korea due to the profound friendship between himself and the Gallery.

Nam June Paik studied in Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, and Germany and worked actively in Germany and the United States. As “the father of video art,” he positioned himself as one of the most important artists in the world as early as the 1970s. And Paik became known in earnest in Korea through the video work Good Morning, Mr. Orwell which was broadcast on the air in real-time in New York, Paris, San Francisco, and Seoul in 1984. In 1988 his first solo exhibition in Korea was held at GALLERY HYUNDAI (Hyundai Hwarang at the time) and Won Gallery (Sept. 14 – 30, 1988), and his massive TV installation work Dadaikseon (The More, The Better) was installed at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea at Gwacheon. In those days, while creating his video sculptures of Korean historical figures such as Sejong the Great, Queen Seondeok, and Jang Yeong-sil, Paik began working actively in his home country.

The current exhibition primarily presents his works from 1980s and 1990s and brings out some of his major pieces including his representative video sculptures John Cage (1990) and Charlotte Moorman (1990) as well as works shown at the Guggenheim Museum at his retrospective exhibition, The Worlds of Nam June Paik in 2000: Family of Robot: Grandfather (1986) and Family of Robot: Grandmother (1986). Also the work presented at his first solo exhibition in Korea, Queen Seondeok (1988) is on display as well. In particular, the objets and records related to the performance, A Pas de Loup (With the Steps of the Wolf) which was performed in the format of a shamanic ritual to commemorate Paik’s lifelong friend Joseph Beuys in the backyard of the Gallery in the summer of 1990, are re-presented in 26 years.