Chinese Memory
A kind of self-portrait, Chinese Memory invites us into Nam June Paik’s studio, his books on the floor, his art on the wall, his television aflicker. A vintage television cabinet on which Paik has written his name in Chinese, Korean, and English, as well as other phrases and drawings, contains a roughly twenty-minute video sampling content from American and Chinese television, including news clips, archival footage, and Allen Ginsberg reading poetry, all manipulated with a video synthesizer. The work also comprises a stack of books on Chinese philosophy, a Chinese-style painting on a scroll, and a 1975 social realist album cover, "Spring is Eternal in Our Motherland." Video, language, music, and images register different levels of mediated communication, while Paik explores his own mediated relationship with China.
In his meditations on technology and global politics, Paik maintained a particular fascination with China. At the outset of the Korean War in 1950, Paik fled Korea and arrived in Hong Kong. China’s growing influence in the region, culminating with its rise as a global superpower, formed the geopolitical backdrop for many of his experiments. He later traveled to Germany, where he first exhibited his prepared television sets in 1963, and then emigrated to New York City. This work intertwines his peripatetic autobiography, from Asia to New York, with his broad interests in Asian philosophy and thought as well as larger currents of trans-national exchange. Paik’s "late" works, created after his 1996 stroke, show him grappling with cultural memory and his avant-garde origins as the tension between the past and present became more acute. Chinese Memory dates to this late period; it is likely the last work Paik made before his death.
In his meditations on technology and global politics, Paik maintained a particular fascination with China. At the outset of the Korean War in 1950, Paik fled Korea and arrived in Hong Kong. China’s growing influence in the region, culminating with its rise as a global superpower, formed the geopolitical backdrop for many of his experiments. He later traveled to Germany, where he first exhibited his prepared television sets in 1963, and then emigrated to New York City. This work intertwines his peripatetic autobiography, from Asia to New York, with his broad interests in Asian philosophy and thought as well as larger currents of trans-national exchange. Paik’s "late" works, created after his 1996 stroke, show him grappling with cultural memory and his avant-garde origins as the tension between the past and present became more acute. Chinese Memory dates to this late period; it is likely the last work Paik made before his death.
Artwork Details
- Title: Chinese Memory
- Artist: Nam June Paik (American (born Korea), Seoul 1932–2006 Miami, Florida)
- Date: 2005
- Medium: Single-channel video, color, silent, 21 min., 12 sec.; vintage television cabinet with permanent oil marker, glass, acrylic, record cover, scroll, antennae, and books
- Dimensions: 2024.302a-p: 81 × 55 × 44 in. (205.7 × 139.7 × 111.8 cm)
- Classifications: Variable Media, Sculpture, Books, Works on Paper
- Credit Line: Purchase, Charles M. Kim and Jean Su Maeng Kim, and Lila Acheson Wallace Gifts, 2024
- Object Number: 2024.302a–p
- Rights and Reproduction: © Nam June Paik Estate
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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