Celebrating the first truly global artist, National Gallery Singapore stages a major survey of Nam June Paik’s groundbreaking oeuvre.
Practising across 5 decades, Paik is best known as the pioneer of video art and for mixed-media expressions that were way ahead of his time. Among his work’s most notable traits is his use of overlapping sounds, images, and colours to create different types of distorted layers that pushed the boundaries between media representation and reality.
Split into 11 sections, Nam June Paik: The Future Is Now leads us through an in-depth exploration of Paik’s journey. From Buddhism and experimenting with early recording technology, to being a key member of the Fluxus movement in the 1960s and his landmark collaborations with fellow artists, dive into an examination of Paik’s vision and how his work came to influence modern multidisciplinary artistry.
Among his many seminal contributions, Paik changed the landscape of visual art with his use TV monitors to create audio-visual sculptures, propelling his views of a world where nature and technology would co-exist. He saw a world where mass media communications would come to occupy a vital part of society and had famously coined the term “electronic superhighway”.
A remarkably accurate prediction of our present environment, Paik’s endeavours would eventually lead to a successful satellite broadcast that connected people from countries across both hemispheres and divergent political ideologies.
Nam June Paik: The Future Is Now is an impressive experience, the sheer breadth of it a result of the collaborative efforts between National Gallery Singapore, London’s Tate Modern, Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, and San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art.
On its final leg and the only Asian stop on this exhibition’s international tour, the Singapore exhibition is tailored to put a sharper focus on Paik’s background in Asia and features additional loans from the artist’s estate.
Running from 10 Dec – 27 Mar 2022, catch it at National Gallery Singapore’s Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery and level B1’s Basement Concourse.
To book your tickets or find out more, visit their site here.
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Pictures courtesy of National Gallery Singapore / Ogilvy
