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Nam June Paik (Korean, b. 1932)
Mixed media video sculpture
11 feet 6 inches x 8 feet Purchase gift of Joan Dalis Martone, Fran
and Lenox Baker, Mr. and Mrs. Macon F. Brock, Jr., Susan and
Paul Hirschbiel, Dr. and Mrs. Paul Mansheim, Robert McLanahan
Smith III and the Art Purchase Fund.

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Nam June Paik's career spans five decades in which he has explored the possibilities of modern music, performance art, conceptual art, installation art, objects, painting, drawing, video art, broadcast television, satellite transmission and the Internet. Never one to rest on his laurels, Paik has always continued to move forward in his art with a passionate intensity and has been described as "a nomad in permanent dialogue with several cultures and art genres," who constantly "transcends borders, between East and West, art and technology, order and chaos."

Commemorating Copenhagen as the 1996 Cultural Capital of Europe, the Statens Museum for Kunst and Patricia Asbék commissioned video artist Nam June Paik to create robot sculptures of six famous Danes for the Museum's exhibition Electronic Undercurrents. The six sculptures included Hans Christian Andersen, Karen Blixen, Niels Bohr, Carl Th. Dreyer, Soren Kierkegaard, and Hamlet. The Chrysler Museum of Art acquired Hamlet Robot in 1998.

While at first glance the piece appears futuristic and foreboding, there is something almost familiar about the figure with its silently flickering television screens. Look closely at one of the screens. What images appear? They move so quickly that no sooner has the eye comprehended one, four more have passed unseen. Now draw back and view the piece as a whole. 13 video screens play endless loops of scenes from stage, screen and fine arts representations of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Paik's depiction is a multi-faceted one -- the video equivalent of cubism -- as Hamlet is apprehended by the viewer from a variety of angles until the whole becomes visible. But is this a portrait of a man or an archetype that transcends both the character and the play?

In Shakespeare's play, the ghost of Hamlet's murdered father calls for revenge, yet Hamlet is unable to act upon the summons because he has over-analyzed his actions. When Hamlet has definitive proof that his uncle is the murderer, he loses his opportunity for swift revenge by debating on the appropriateness of the time and place. It is not until Hamlet's emotions overcome his intellect that he is able to carry out his murdered father's request.

Like Hamlet, the viewer is drawn into the drama with an apparition -- only this is no ghost that bids one follow, but rather the appearance of Hamlet himself that beckons from the 13 video screens. And, like Hamlet, the viewer is lulled into inaction -- in this case by the hypnotic quality of the video imagery. Yet Paik seems to be saying something more. What commentary is he making about life in the 1990s? How has he brought past and present together in a single sculpture? What does the future hold in Paik's vision?

As with all of his video works, Paik addresses the idea of cultural exchange. It is fitting that there is no sound here, for Shakespeare's words, however lovely, are unnecessary in this vision of Hamlet which transcends both time and place. Here the zen master of video art meets the tragic western figure of Hamlet. To quote Hamlet's last words, "the rest is silence."

Artist Biography

Nam June Paik was born in Seoul, Korea in 1932, but his family later moved to Tokyo. Paik entered the University of Tokyo to study music, art history, aesthetics and philosophy. After graduating in 1956, he traveled to Germany to continue his studies in 20th-century music. In 1958 he met the composer John Cage and began working with composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. His compositions during this period were performance-driven, with the audience becoming an intrinsic part of the piece.

John Cage's randomized musical style and his work with prepared pianos and radio profoundly influenced Paik to pursue the newer technology of television as a medium in which to create. In 1962, Paik joined up with the Fluxus movement, a loose association of artists rebelling against perceived institutions and trends in the arts and high culture. The support and inspiration of artists associated with Fluxus allowed Paik to make the leap to video art. In 1963, Paik sold most of his musical equipment and personal possessions in order to buy thirteen television sets to use in his artistic projects. His first one-man exhibition in Wuppertal, Germany introduced his video art to the world. Paik then traveled to Japan where he soaked up the latest advances in television technology. He worked with electronics engineer Shuya Abe to create a sculpture entitled Robot K-456 that captured the visual, auditory and aesthetic effect that he had envisioned. Since his first robot, Paik has continued to push the boundaries of video-inspired art, travelling to the furthest reaches of what he dubs the "Electronics Superhighway." He has been artist-in-residence at Boston's WGBH and New York's WNET, and has exhibited his art and performances around the world, including a number of live satellite transmissions that spanned the globe. In 1993 he won the Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale, and a major retrospective of his work is scheduled to open at New York's Guggenheim Museum in January of 2000. -- by Anna Holloway

References/Resources

Hanhardt, John G. Nam June Paik, with essays by Dieter Ronte, Michael Nyman, John G. Hanhardt, and David A. Ross. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1982. Nam June Paik: Video Sculptures. Copenhagen: Statens Museums for Kunst, 1996. Rosebush, Judson, ed. Nam June Paik: Videa 'n' Videology 1959-1973. Syracuse: Everson Museum of Art, 1974.

Web sites

• http://www.plexus.org/morgan/paik.asp
  
• http://www.unc.edu/~stearns
  
• http://www.panix.com/~fluxus/FluxusMenu.asp