Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik (1932–2006) is recognized as the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use of the term “electronic superhighway” in 1974 to describe the future of telecommunications. 

Born near Seoul, South Korea, he was trained as a classical pianist and educated at the University of Tokyo (B.A. in aesthetics, 1956), Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, the International Music College in Freiburg, and the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt. In Germany, he pursued his interest in avant-garde music, composition, and performance. There he met John Cage (elected to the Academy in 1978) and George Maciunas and became a member of the Neo-Dada Fluxus movement. In 1963, Paik held his groundbreaking solo exhibition at the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, Germany, where he featured his prepared television sets that radically altered the appearance and content of television. 

After immigrating to the United States in 1964, he settled in New York City and expanded his experimentation with video and television through exhibitions of his work at The New School, Galerie Bonino, and the Howard Wise Gallery. In 1965, Paik became one of the first artists to use a portable video camcorder in his work. In 1969, he worked with Japanese engineer Shuya Abe to construct an early video synthesizer that allowed Paik to combine and manipulate images from different sources. The Paik-Abe video synthesizer transformed electronic moving-image making. His artworks include the videotapes Global Groove (1973), Living with the Living Theatre (1989), and Guadalcanal Requiem (1977/1979); sculptures TV Buddha (1974) and TV Cello (1971); installations TV Garden (1974), Video Fish (1975), and Fin de Siecle II (1989); and television productions such as Good Morning Mr. Orwell. Paik was a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1979–1996. 

In 1984, after nearly thirty-five years in exile, Paik returned to South Korea, where he became an influential figure in the country’s art scene and helped connect it to the international art world. He held solo exhibitions in Korea and produced two global broadcast projects for the 1986 Asia Games and the 1988 Summer Olympics, both hosted in Seoul. Paik introduced influential artists such as John Cage, Merce Cunningham (elected to the Academy in 1979), and Joseph Beuys to Korea’s art scene, while also bringing recent developments in video art and interactive media from Europe and the United States to Korean audiences. Paik also played a role in bringing the 1993 Whitney Biennial to Seoul, as well as in founding the Gwangju Biennale and establishing the Korea Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. 

Paik’s 1995 piece Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, is on permanent display at the Lincoln Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. His many honors included the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale (1993), the Ho-Am Prize in the Arts (1995), the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy (1998), Order of Cultural Merit (Korea, 2000), and the Edward MacDowell Medal in the Arts (2004).