Nam June Paik was a Fellow at the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies in 1982. His practice included video, television, and sculpture.
The Nam June Paik exhibition will run May 8 – October 3, 2021.
About the exhibition:
A mesmerizing riot of sights and sounds, Nam June Paik brings together more than 200 works by the visionary experimental artist who bridged art, music, performance, and technology in groundbreaking ways, and whose influence is still felt in the art, pop culture, music, and film of today.
One of the first truly global and transnational artists, Paik foresaw the importance of mass media and new technologies, coining the phrase ‘electronic superhighway’ in 1974 to predict the future of communication in an internet age. This exhibition — the artist’s first-ever West Coast retrospective — celebrates Paik’s collaborative approach that transcended genres and traditions, while also highlighting the artist’s innovative, playful, and profoundly radical work.
From the 7×7 Review:
The room explodes with brilliant colors, the likes of which are rarely seen in person. Colossal figures strike dynamic poses. A choir of voices and rhythms fill every corner of the enormous space. The sheer magnitude of the piece adorning the walls takes your breath away. This is the Sistine Chapel.
Well, no, these aren’t your ordinary frescoes by Michelangelo. “The Sistine Chapel” by Nam June Paik (1932-2006) is just one of the 200 works on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s spring retrospective Nam June Paik. A visionary of the electronic age, Paik’s massive assortment of installations, paintings, and music are fascinating meditations on the philosophy and artistry of digital media.
For the first time ever on the West Coast, Paik, who was known as the “father of media art,” will have a retrospective show celebrating his incredible interdisciplinary oeuvre. And the timing couldn’t be better. Anticipating a society inextricably intertwined with digital media, Paik’s philosophy seems almost prophetic. As he once predicted, “Skin has become inadequate in interfacing with reality. Technology has become the body’s new membrane of existence.”
