Nam June Paik Art Center (Director Young Chul Lee), which was named ‘The House Where Nam June Paik Lives Long' by Paik himself when he was alive, opened Nam June Paik Festival “Now Jump” last October 8. The Nam June Paik Art Center has been the hottest issue in Korea's art sector with its well-organized opening exhibition, attractive structure and interiors, and outstanding Curatorial Team. Therefore, despite that it is not very accessible, being situated in Yongin in the outskirts of Seoul, it is highly popular and always crowded. It received great accolades as a ‘rediscovery of Nam June Paik' from most curators and critics who visited the opening exhibition.

The Nam June Paik Art Center took seven years to be completed since Nam June Paik made an agreement with the Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation, in 2001. Paik put much consideration to select the best possible site, and finally chose 85 Sanggal-dong, Giheung-gu, Yongin because he was enticed by its ‘feeling of a hometown village.' Through an international subscription, The Nam June Paik Art Center chose German architects Kristen Schemel and Marina Stancovic to design the building, in 2003 . The building has two underground floors and three above-ground floors and is 5,600m 2 in gross floor area. The exterior walls consist of glass facades, and the interior space includes an exhibition room, an education room, a video archive room, an art shop, and a cafeteria . The long, lateral building that is parallel to the surrounding mountains boasts a beautifully curved silhouette. When viewed from the rear, the oval building seems to be hugged by the mountains. The Nam June Paik Art Center's sophisticated image beautifully harmonizes with the cozy topography of this area.

On the occasion that the Nam June Paik Art Center has been opened, Sanggal-dong district is expected to be developed into a museum park encompassing, the Gyeonggi Provincial Museum and such public facilities planned as a Children's Museum and Ssamji Park. In addition, an ecological natural park and an opera house are planned around the near by Giheung Reservoir, which means that a composite culture belt will be built in Yongin, centered about the Name June Paik Art Center.

First Foreign Curators in Korean Museum

The Nam June Paik Art Center attracted many people by hiring foreign curators, for the first time in Korea. Director Young Chul Lee (Professor at Kaywon School of Art and Design), who was inaugurated last March, has thought much about recruiting the right people while planning and preparing for the opening exhibition for the past seven months. As Paik left Korea at an early age and all Korea knows is his reputation, it was difficult to find Nam June Paik experts in Korea. Therefore, Director Lee planned to host only international exhibitions and special exhibitions and decided to appoint foreign curators. Nam June Paik Art Center's Curatorial Team recruited Tobias Berger as the art director and Claudia Pestana as the assistant curator to become Korea's only ‘international' curatorial team. Berger, who says, “I accepted this position without hesitation, because I share many similar perspectives with Director Lee,” and Pestana, who says, “I came to Korea solely because I trust Director Lee,” have formed a special bond with Director Lee.

Berger, who was appointed last September 1, is an international curator who is close to Asian art. He has directed Hong Kong's Para/Site for three years and participated in the 2005 Guangzhou Triennale and the 2006 Busan Biennale. He says: “My experiences with Fluxus and Nam June Paik's art as a young boy in Germany have motivated me to travel and work around the world. When I was in college, I joined Rene Block's “Fluxus in Germany” and traveled around the world for five years.” Berger is planning to exchange with many art museums overseas and showcase ‘holistic art' that destroys the boundaries between art, music, science, and philosophy and induces active participation of THE audience to succeed the spirits of Nam June Paik, a true citizen of the world.

Assistant Curator Pestana from Portugal, who settled earlier in July, has broad experiences with art museum education and has worked for Portugal's Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation: Modern Art Centre and the 2007 Kassel Documenta Education Team. Director Lee hired Pestana, as the international art sector these days stress the importance of education. Pestana takes charge of various curatorial programs including planning, international public relations, and education at the Nam June Paik Art Center. When I asked Pestana about her vision for the educational programs at the Nam June Paik Art Center, she said: “Education is most closely related to reality. Therefore, my experiences at other organizations would not apply to what I do here. It is most important to understand the demographics of the audience - their age, intellectual level, and interests - to plan what I can do with them. It is also important to try to learn from them, not to teach them.” She stressed a long-term vision to think from the audience's perspective and make a step-by-step approach. This is more reliable than any articulated plan. Berger and Pestana convey the ‘Fluxus' spirit, the nomadic character that flows through Nam-june Paik's art.

Now Jump!

As mentioned above, the Nam June Paik Art Center had made a big issue by having young architects design an innovative building and hiring Korea's first foreign curators, but no one had expected much from the opening exhibition. Because it was the opening of Nam June Paik Art Center, many people were prejudiced by the idea that the exhibition should gather Paik's ‘masterpieces' in order to succeed. The Nam June Paik Art Center had many difficulties bringing the most popular works of Paik from the U.S. and confronted many restrictions while borrowing the pieces from major art museums in Europe. However, Director Lee created a new kind of exhibition by demonstrating his fullest capacities as a ‘grand-scale curator.' His idea behind it was to visualize Paik's art philosophy rather than creating a reminiscence of his masterpieces. While relighting the history of Paik, he discovered that the ideology of ‘Suntao' in the foundation of Paik's art was formed in Japan in the early years. Paik was already introduced to Suntao while he was attending Kamakura High School, in Japan, and learned composing while attending Tokyo University. This fact is not widely known, because most studies on Paik have focused on his years in Germany and the U.S. In Japan, Director Lee found acquaintances of Paik who influenced Paik's art and recorded his interviews with them. He used the recordings for this exhibition. Director Lee said, “I was astonished. Paik, who attempted to communicate with the whole world, was not a mere artist, but a prophet.”

The appellation of the Nam June Paik Festival, which will be held at the Art Center, Singal High School Gymnasium, and Zien Art Gallery from October 8, 2008 to February 5, 2009, is “Now Jump.” This was quoted from Aesop's Fables: “This is Rhodes Island. Now jump.” It is not a concept, but it stresses execution and innovation. It exposes both Paik's artistic characteristics and Director Lee's planning characteristics. Art/design critic Lim Geun-jun(aka Lee Chungwoo) praised the exhibition as the spotlight above all major turning points of contemporary art. He says: “Director Lee is the pioneer of a new realm in Korea's contemporary art that showcased mid-sized and large-sized exhibitions as ‘critical spectacles' in the mid-1990s. The biggest characteristic of Lee's curatorship is that he interprets the vision of each artwork through the eyes of viewers today and creates a new network of meaning by making them face each other or be parallel. Paik's art world had a good chemistry with his directing philosophy.” It is impressive to see Paik's masterpieces interact with the works of his contemporaries George Brecht, Allen Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, and John Cage and recent works by young artists.

The role of the space layout is also critical in this kind of exhibition. Because, the Nam June Paik Art Center has narrow spaces inside to take in many artworks, Director Lee created a 3D layout design and narrative-based composition. Director Lee, known for his efforts to solve every problem by himself, designed the layout with a carpenter with whom he has worked for a long time. The acclaim enjoyed by the Nam June Paik Festival is the fruit of passion that reflects the art spirit of Paik in every stage - even curating. The name Nam June Paik, who landed officially in Korea with “Good Morning Mr. Orwell” in 1984, is too familiar to our ears. The 20th-century virtuoso born in Korea and pioneer of video art is positioned in the core of Western fine art history. The core of his world of art is ‘complexity' above all. He combined art and pop media, and art and technology in his video art, and invented performance music, expanding music from listening to music to viewing it, and grafted performance music onto happenings by using his inter-media sense. Although it is a media organization, the Nam June Paik Art Center pursues an intermediary space just beyond a museum centered about media or technology.

1: Front view of the NJP Art Center

2: TV Garden, 1974(2008) ⓒ Nam June Paik Art Center

3: Peter Fischer, Karlheinz Stockhausen ' s Originale, 1961 ⓒ Historical Archive of Stadt Koln