“I use technology to hate her properly.” —Nam June Paik
From pithy ironic maxims to television autopsies, Korean-American artist Nam June Paik (1932-2006) was never one to hesitate between the playful and the bizarre. Referring to life before meeting John Cage as “BC”, Paik applied the composer’s avant-garde approach to his own performances with physically reconfigured instruments to wild – and often hilarious – effect. From pianos adorned with bras to violins dragged through the street by their strings, Paik insisted on mixing the banal with the classic, the ironic with the bow on strings.
Nam June Paik: Moon is the oldest television, Amanda Kim’s documentary about the late iconoclast, chronicles Paik’s gradual rise from performance artist to, as one expert put it, “the world’s most important video artist”, anticipating the dizzying ways whose electronic and digital culture would transform human discourse. Comprised of archival footage spanning the second half of the 20th century – from Japan’s brutal occupation of Korea to Hello, Mr. Orwell, Paik’s 1984 international satellite “installation” broadcast live to 25 million viewers – Kim’s debut film pays homage to one of the most irreverent and important artists of the modern era. Contextualizing the artist’s eccentric brilliance and technological prescience, an eclectic lineup of talking heads – David Ross, Holly Solomon, Park Seo-bo and Marina Abramović among them – expound on Paik’s anarchic spirit and singular vision.
Beginning as a music student in Munich in the 1950s, Paik’s rise to artistic stardom was certainly not a smooth arc into the sun. His initial work was met with confusion, if not disgust; Financial and visa difficulties plagued his time in New York in the 1960s and 1970s, leading to health problems once he reached middle age. After 34 years away from his home country, Paik returned in the mid-1980s, fearing his leftist history would jeopardize his visit, before being proclaimed a national hero. One of the takeaways from Kim’s film is the price Paik paid to continue working as an artist. More than anything, however, he was lucky enough to live long enough to see his talent achieve worldwide success.
“Although I am an artist, I am not really concerned with the art world,” wrote the polymath, one of his many diary entries read aloud throughout the film by the actor. Steven Yeun. “I am concerned about the whole world.” Nam June Paik: Moon is the oldest television shines with the glorious mess of this world’s technological desiderata – no less relevant now than when Paik opened a television in 1965.
Nam June Paik: Moon is the oldest television is screening at the Film Forum (209 West Houston Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan) through April 8 and other select theaters across the country.
