sᴇʟᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ ᴀʀᴛᴡᴏʀᴋ: ɴᴀᴍ ᴊᴜɴᴇ ᴘᴀɪᴋ, ᴢᴇɴ ғᴏʀ ᴛᴠ, 1963

 

                64 - 65

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             Early Career

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born in Seoul in 1932

trained as classical pianist in Korea, fled Korean war

went first to Hong Kong and settled in Japan

attended University of Tokyo, completed thesis on German

composer Arnold Schoenberg (later teach John Cage)

moved to West Germany after graduating, studied with composers

in Munich and Freiburg

made important connections through International Summer

Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, met avant garde composer

Karlheinz Stockhausen, then Cage the next summer

1959 - debut work Hommage a John Cage, audiotape spliced

and added with live performances

1962 - made acquaintance with George Maciunas, self appointed

chairman of Fluxus movement

1964 - moved permanently to US

maintained connections with Fluxus, performed often with cellist

Charlotte Moorman

concerned with experimenting with new technologies

credited with having invented genre of video art

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          Fluxus in West 

              Germany

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1961 - founded by George Maciunas, who came to US in 1948

inaugurated Fluxus in NY with short lived magazine, developed

much further while stationed with US Airforce in Wiesbaden,

West Germany in 1962

name of group allude to fact that everything is in flux and flow

emphasis on ephemeral, performance based events, tend to

attract artists engaged in musical composition and performance

had more revolutionary anti-art ethos

similar to Happenings, could be carried out by anyone

network of international artists:

East Asian - Yoko Ono, Ay-O, Shigeko Kubota, Mieko Shiomi

American - George Brecht, Emmet Williams, Benjamin

Patterson, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles

Germans - Wolf Vostel, Joseph Beuys

French - Ben Vautier, Robert Filiou

included more women than any other art movement at the time

different approaches to making art, similar conceptual and 

political aims

1963 - Fluxus Manifesto (distributed by tossing into crowd)

promote non art reality to be grasped by all peoples

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               Analysis

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1962 - Fluxus Festspiele neuester Musik' (Fluxus Festival of

Recent Music) held in Wiesbaden, Germany

Paik performed Zen for Head, which debuted in 1961 as a part

of Karlheinz Stockhausen's concert piece Originales (originals)

Paik's interpretation of 1960 score written by LaMonte Young

"draw a straight line and follow it"

put head in bowl of black ink and tomato juice, draw line with head

reference Asian spirituality and tradition of calligraphy

1963 - Zen for TV, small tv with single line of light

made number of copies, one in reproductions booklet made in 1976

often recreated using Paik's diagrams and instructions

works from 1960s onward used technology in new ways