Exhibitions

Exhibition Wrap around the Time
Period 2016-01-29 ~ 2016-07-03
Venue Gallery 1 & 2, Nam June Paik Art Center
Planning
curator: Kim Jihee, Kim Hyunjeung

Co-curators: Gregor Jansen, Dae-Shik Kim, Mark B. N. Hansen, Hyun-Suk Seo, Jinsuk Suh, Jaewon Yu, Young-june Lee, Zhang Ga, Yujoo Han, Sungmin Hong

Artists: Nam June Paik, Sora Kim, Daisuke Yamashiro, Jungki Beak, Bubble Deck Auto Wash Charlotte Norm (KiKijin, Yoonki Kim, Sungmin Hong, Jin wook Hong, Vin), Vakki, A.Typist (Kim Taeyong, Ryu Hankil, lo wie), Wang Yuyang, UJINO, Ryu Biho, Isabella Fürnkäs, Zhang Peili, Joyce Hinterding, David Haines, Carsten Nicolai, Raphaela Vogel
Summary
Wrap around the World is a project Nam June Paik timed in sync with the 1988 Seoul Olympics. He connected all the cultural regions around the world using the satellite system, announcing the end of the Cold War and expressing a future of coexistence in which a horizontal network is a possibility. The project, in which countless countries from the East and West including China and Russia participated, demolished the boundaries between genres and cultural hierarchies. Most importantly, this was the first project in art history to use the satellite system to fuse the spatial realm of regional cultures, presenting a unified Earth beyond the limitations of physical distance.

Nam June Paik Art Center’s exhibition Wrap around the Time, a special event held in honor of the 10th anniversary of Paik’s passing, is in line with Wrap around the World. This project went a step further from fusing physical space, and attempted to deconstruct and in turn connect temporal gaps between the past, present, and future. This temporal and spatial condensation was made possible through a new form of exhibition, consisting of a collaboration between Paik from the past and contemporary artists from the present.

Wrap around the Time progressed in the form of generating new discourse from Paik’s artworks, and presenting the works of contemporary media artists as evidence. Eleven experts from various fields including the humanities, sociology, science, aesthetics, and literature participated in the discursive portion of the project. The experts, comprising neuroscientist Dae-Shik Kim, mythologist Jaewon Yu, novelist Yujoo Han, Curator Jinsuk Suh, Gregor Jansen, Mizuki Takahashi, Zhang Ga, performance director Sungmin Hong, Media theorist Hyun-Suk Seo, media critic Mark B.N. Hansen, and machine critic Young-june Lee, selected nineteen works from Paik’s oeuvre according to their preference. They analyzed Paik’s works from their own perspectives, re-illuminated the key concepts, and presented a variety of new theoretical discourses in eleven pieces that cross over the past and present.

The experts who produced the discourses each elected 1~3 artists (a total of 14 teams) comprising contemporary media artists whose works would attest to their ideas. As a result, artists and works from around the world were selected, including Raphaela Vogel, Isabella Fürnkäs, Vakki, Daisuke Yamashiro, Jungki Beak, Sora Kim, David Haines and Joyce Hinterding, Biho Ryu, Zhang Peili, UJINO, Wang Yuyang, Carsten Nicolai, A. Typist, and Bubble Deck Auto Wash Charlotte Norm. Nam June Paik Art Center presented a new amalgamation of an exhibition called Wrap around the Time, by connecting the works of these 14 teams with the art of Nam June Paik as the original source of the discourses.

Each of Paik’s work contains pioneering philosophy and thoughts about the coming future society. Wrap around the Time reminds us, through a three-step matching process that brings Nam June Paik, theorists, and contemporary artists together, that Paik’s art world firmly sits at the seismic center of the cultural phenomena and discourses of the 21st century. In this process, we could re-illuminate his artistic vision in their depth and variety, focusing on aspects that were overshadowed by Paik’s genius.

Wrap around the Time, as noted above, is formally different from other contemporary art exhibitions. By emphasizing the process of creation more than the evaluation of the craft as result, the exhibition is distinguished from other existing art projects. The characteristics of the exhibition could be summarized as follows.

A Collective Exhibition of a Horizontal Network
Wrap around the Time moves away from vertical structures led and planned by one director. The 21st century digital society does not require a vertical organization based on capital or labor as was the case with the past, in the creation, dissemination, and consumption of images. The advent of communicative democratization, which enables balanced networks, in turn allows for creative activities based on a horizontal community. This project creates exhibition discourses through horizontal and democratic exchanges and communications among 11 planners, focusing on the research theme of Nam June Paik. This is a democratic creation project in a new form, proposing an alternative for the mainstream art exhibitions upheld by a small number of people in powerful groups or a single director.

The Creation of Horizontal Diversity in Discourses on Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik Art Center built a community that studies Nam June Paik’s art world through Wrap around the Time. By doing so, the center plans to continuously study Paik’s work and expand the community. The research center, wherein specialists from various fields such the humanities, sociology, science, aesthetics, and literature participate, will expand vertical discourses on Paik’s work to horizontal diversity. The most productive outcome of this exhibition not only includes the sixteen works that have been submitted, but also the discourses about Paik that have been generated by eleven theorists. The discourses by eleven theorists, ranging from bio art and Paik, artificial intelligence and Paik, and quantum mechanics and Paik will be the foundation on which studies on Paik could expand toward horizontal diversity.

An Exhibition that Creates Multiple Layers of Associations
Wrap around the Time is a new form of exhibition that goes beyond linear association as a method of understanding art, which requires the installation of one or many artists’ works under a unified theme. Each of the works in the exhibition is matched with Paik’s productions. This exhibition proposes a new method of appreciation that seeks to expand the reach of association as non-linear imagination through freely juxtaposed and fused works based on the discourses generated by theorists.

Through Wrap around the Time, held in the memory of Paik on the 10th anniversary of his passing, various new discourses will be generated, and diverse studies on Paik will continue to unfold. Also, Paik from the 20th century and contemporary artists in the 21st century will become one, transcending time and space. We wish to focus not only on re-illuminating Paik’s art but also emphasizing the infinite expandability of Paik’s vision and proving this point. Moreover, we believe that this exhibition is the most effective expression of the future network society that does away with regional, racial, religious, and cultural hierarchy and enables horizontal sharing among humans, Nature, and technology, in terms of both its content and form.