Page 114 - The Pioneers, November 26, 2016 Hong Kong

Video art imitates nature, not in its appearance or mass, but in its intimate "time-structure"... which is the
process of AGING (a certain kind of irreversibility).

-Paik Nam-June

Among the first artists who were quick to recognize the
value and need for the recognition of our era's electronic
technology as a significant art medium, Paik Nam-June
is the widest-ranging and most prolific artist. Paik's bold
expression and free experimentation, which led him in
a more avant-garde direction than his contemporaries,
encompass one of the most significant bodies of work in
the medium and his work is notable for its tremendous
breadth and depth. Paik is widely recognized as a true
pioneer, who made an enormous contribution to the
development of video as an art form and the history of
video art through his Fluxus-based performances, altered
television sets of the early 1960s, the ground breaking
videotapes and multi-media installations of the 1970s,
humorous video robots of the 1980s and computer based
new video images of the 1990s and 2000s.

Enlightenment 78 RPMs (Lot 2514) is a great example
that illustrates Paik's core source of inspiration and
philosophical approach to the work throughout his
career: music and the Asian mind, Buddhism in this case.
Paik grew up with music, playing piano since childhood.
Paik had a particular fascination with the innovative work
of Arnold Schoenberg, a noted avant-garde composer.
Paik pursued his graduate study in music theory at the
University of Munich and the Conservatory in Freiburg,
Germany. Naturally, music became a crucial part of
Paik's work both in terms of conception and execution
(Fig. 1). In Enlightenment 78 RPMs, Paik assembled
a vintage Victrola on a stand, replacing the original
associations with antiques such as a record and books
to a small Buddha statue, a TV monitor and lighting
respectively. In this work, the Buddha revolves instead
of the record, replacing or becoming music itself, at
the same time symbolizing enlightenment, as the title
articulates. It evokes TV Buddha from 1974 (Fig. 2), one
of Paik's most celebrated pieces, in that both works
employ a closed-circuit video camera to broadcast the
Buddha. In TV Buddha, the Buddha silently observes
himself on the screen transmitted from a camera placed
behind the TV monitor. The Buddha faces himself in
contemplation and the electronic gadgets become a
tool for his deep meditation. It displays Paik's incisive
thinking about television and technology in general along
with his optimism, openness, and sense of humour.
These valuable aspects of Paik's art distinguish him from
artists in other media. Media experts have been given
to criticizing TV as crass, superficial, and trivial, a pure

104 THE PIONEERS 先 鋒 薈 萃 Lot 2514 Detail 局部