MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE
1999

Nam June Paik. Medium Is the Message
City Revue, May, 1999

Nam June Paik has been always in the first ranks to use technology in art. He got the name of the father of video art due to his invention of an electronic synthesizer that gives dazzling visual effects, which revolutionized this field of art. Benamou Gallery, which has got an exclusive right for Paik’s works, will present them to the wide audience at "TV Gallery".

Watching TV. Medium Is the Message by Nam June Paik at TV Gallery
Konstantin Agunovich
Afisha, April 19 – May 2, 1999

Albert Benamou Gallery, which has got an exclusive right for Nam June Paik’s works, with the artist’s consent, is holding an exhibition at "TV Gallery". You won’t see Paik’s original video sculptures here – they are too expensive. Foreign gallerists assume that all know how Nam June Paik’s monsters look, made of antiquated radio and TV cabinets with modern built-in monitors. It is very considerate, but not really true. As a matter of fact, there is exhibited what was being shown on these monitors.

Paik is meaningful - as Zen Master, and technological - as synchrophasotron. "Master of video Zen" – this is too modest title. You’d rather call him "the Father of video art". These high-flown names show, that Paik has already staked a claim of a classic in the history of art.

An Electronic Buddha. Nam June Paik at TV Gallery
Mikhail Sidlin
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 20, 1999

An eye, a bird, a woman singing. The sounds of a classical opera are coming from the loud speakers. Dozens of images are trembling, brightful colors are playing continuously. The pictures keep changing within the seconds. This is how one of Nam June Paik’s works look like at TV Gallery. Albert Benamou, a professor and dealer from Paris, provided TV Gallery with the works from his collection. The image is supersaturated with information. There are so many changes that you can hardly remember them. Only the symbols of an eye, a flight, a song are present constantly, as a sign that in any technique there can be revealed the base which has been known to art for thousands of years. The same symbols have been known to the art of Australian aboriginals.

We should get carried away with Nam June Paik’s foresight. Just to list everything he was the first one in, it would require a roll one-mile long, including "phone art", "TV participation" (a remote prototype of the nowadays interactive TV). "His brush is ordinary electronics", this is how the art critics define Nam June Paik’s way of work.

The art of Nam June Paik is first of all the art of ideas. The main thing is to hit upon an idea and to implement what was conceived. "TV Gallery" is the name consonant to the title of some Nam June Paik’s work. The director of "TV Gallery", Nina Zaretskaya, has constructed the Moscow version of the installation "TV Buddha" herself. She asked all her friends to look for a statue of Buddha. And the exhibition meritoriously presents Nam June Paik’s ideas, but not its advanced technology. One of the types of video art invented by Nam June Paik is a "multi-monitor installation". It seems pretty easy to put a few TV-sets side by side, but to obtain its synchronization, to make pictures form a single space is quite different... At "TV Gallery" there are mainly presented the fragments of Nam June Paik’s multi-monitor installations. It's a sort of a symbolic representation of his works, not his author’s project. It’s impossible to raise a budget for a "multi-monitor installation" in Russia. They cost hundred thousands of dollars, because the art of Nam June Paik is not only conceptual, it’s highly technological as well.

The site has been created with the assistance of the "Open Society Institute" (Soros Foundation). Russia