International symposium
Gift of Nam June Paik 6: Musically Yours, 1963–2013
Friday 26 April 2013
Organizer: Nam June Paik Art Center
Gyeonggi Provincial Museum Auditorium
6 Sanggal-ro Giheung-gu
Yongin-si Gyeonggi-do, Korea
(Three-minute walk from Nam June Paik Art Center)
www.njpartcenter.kr
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In his first solo exhibition, Exposition of Music – Electronic Television, in Wuppertal in 1963, Nam June Paik presented television as a tactile and multisensory medium. In art history, this exhibition was a watershed for Paik to move from a musician to a father of media art. The transition, however, has a lot more implications. In celebrating the 50th anniversary of Exposition of Music, this symposium aims to explore the exhibition’s broader resonances for today, in terms of how it foresaw the present-day discussions about the cultures of music and visual art and about our daily experience facing the challenges of the digital age. Together with thirteen manipulated televisions, there were four prepared pianos and several record and tape installations in Exposition of Music. The show also appropriated the whole gallery space in a theatrical and performative way. In a sense, the artistic materials for Paik in Wuppertal included from tiny electrons to the entire space. Paik’s ways of working were quite destructive interventions into artistic mediums, in which the mediums were reborn as an empowering means for the artist himself and also for the participating audience. What lies behind this is his contemplation of changes in media technologies, which are closely intertwined with social and political changes.
Leading scholars and experts from different fields invited to this year’s symposium will address, but not limited to, the above issues so that the symposium could be an arena without borders where certain incongruities play in harmony as in Exposition of Music. This year’s symposium is a special event in conjunction with the exhibition Transmitted Live: Nam June Paik Resounds. The Nam June Paik Art Center invited by the Edinburgh International Festival will organize Transmitted Live, which will be held in Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, UK, from August to October 2013. Also commemorating Exposition of Music, this exhibition drawn primarily from the Nam June Paik Art Center’s collections will be shedding new light on Paik’s art in terms of truly transcending the boundaries of music, visual art and performance art against the backdrop of the Festival’s theme of art and technology. The first Paik exhibition in Scotland, birthplace of electromagnetism and television technology, will resound throughout the city and beyond, demonstrating how revolutionary Paik remains for contemporary audiences.
Program
09:40–10 Registration
10–10:05 Opening address: Manu Park (Director, Nam June Paik Art Center)
10:05–10:10 Welcome remark: Kiyoung Ohm (President, Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation)
10:10–10:20 Symposium introduction: Seong Eun Kim (Curator, Nam June Paik Art Center)
10:20–11 “Reminisce, Nam June Paik 1963″: Peter Brötzmann (Jazz Musician, Paik’s Assistant in Exposition of Music) in conversation with Sang Ae Park (Archivist, Nam June Paik Art Center)
11–11:40 “Nam June Paik, an Honorary Scot: Edinburgh, His Intellectual Home –Transmitted Live: Nam June Paik Resounds 2013″: Pat Fisher (Principal Curator, Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh) in conversation with Chaeyoung Lee (Curator, Nam June Paik Art Center)
11:40–12:50 Break for lunch
12:50–13:30 “Nam June Paik’s Wuppertal Exhibition Read Through Its Poster”: Won Jung Shin (PhD candidate in History of Art, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
13:30–14:10 “Nam June Paik, Curator”: Shan Lim (Professor of Curatorial Studies and Art Management, Dongduk Women’s University)
14:10–14:50 “Experimental Television @50: Nam June Paik and Screen-Based Installation Art Today”: Lutz Koepnick (Professor of German, Film and Media Studies, Washington University in St. Louis)
14:50–15:10 Coffee/tea break
15:10–15:50 “Nam June Paik: The Ontology of Music – Audiovideo, Musicality and Marcel Duchamp”: Simon Shaw-Miller (Professor of History of Art, University of Bristol)
15:50–16:30 “Becoming Video: The Prehension of Painting”: Ina Blom (Professor of History of Art, University of Oslo)
16:30–17:30 Panel discussion: Seong Eun Kim, Chaeyoung Lee (Curators, Nam June Paik Art Center)
17:30–17:40 Closing remark
For press enquiries contact press@njpartcenter.kr / T +82 31 201 8559 / F +82 31 201 8530
Nam June Paik Art Center
10 Paiknamjune-ro Giheung-gu
Yongin-si Gyeonggi-do
446-905 Korea