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Written by Raphaele Shirley
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Sunday, 05 February 2006 |
Nam June Paik passed away in Miami this Sunday January 29 2006 at 8pm in his bed.
He was flown to New York- Jet Blue- and rested for a while at the F.E. Campell Funeral Chapel, on 81st street and Madison, saying good-bye to all his friends and collaborators as they said goodbye to him. He was cremated today, February 4. Yesterday, a memorial was held where all reappeared and gathered for this rare and last moment with him. Bill Viola, Christo and Jean Claude, Merce Cunningham, Yoko Ono, Betsy Broun from the Smithsonian and Wulf Herzogenrath of the Kunsthalle Bremen, as well as many long time collaborators and friends, came for this moment of adieu. We're not sure if Nam June was actually gone as the intense spirit in the room, the collection of people, which all had very deep and personal experiences with him, made it seem as if he were there, enacting a very last Fluxus performance, joking in the corner of his eye, twisting our perception and causing all to shift to a new parameter-- all this while now quasi in his grave. The power! As would behoove an art star, cameras flooded the room and his illustrious friends stepped up to the podium to reminisce about him, on what he had been for them. Christo mentioned how in the late 60' he wrapped one of Nam June's pianos, as NJP had been tardy in removing them from the shared exhibition space. J. Hanhardt described how Nam June pulled one of his robots to be shown in his Whitney retrospective out into Madison Ave for a demonstrative collision between the robot and a car, provoking a crash which would be a practice of coping with what is coming in the future: the collision between man and machine.
In 1984 Nam June created "Good Morning Mr. Orwell " which is the first live broadcast of simultaneous live international performances, foreshadowing what is now common place, due to internet access: the possibility for simultaneous moments of creativity, interteconnecting and generating more through real-time participation on a global scale.
We owe, in video art today, in all, to Nam June and to what he initiated 30 years ago. If we can maintain his spirit, his boldness and defiance, his mixing and intermingling of the impossible, making connections that nobody dares to make, accepting randomness and interconnectivity between all things, we can be sure to stay on the path of true creativity.
PAM says goodbye to him, along with all his friends, and hopes through its own programming and daring force, to push yet again the limits of technology and art, staying on the cusp of what is happening today, utilizing the latest discovered mediums to reach new grounds.... Staying somewhat humble, somehow, in all this and also a bit humorous...as Nam June Paik always was, keeping a ludic twist on even the most drab of circumstances, mixing wire and emotion, screens, electricity and art, fearless of what his combinations could be and provoke.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 22 March 2006 )
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