Dimensions / 59x85cm

This is a poster Nam June Paik made for the fluxus event held at RWTH Aachen on 20 July 1964. At that time Paik stayed in Japan to study color television, so could not take part in the event himself. The long title, Actions/Agit Pop/Dé-CollAge Happening/Events/Anti Art/L’Autrisme/Art Total/Refluxus, traverses the poster, and above and below it, there are sentences in English, German, Korean and Japanese, all meaning that “I respect the monkey” in Paik’s handwriting. The date when this event happened was 20th July, Paik’s birthday, and it was also the 20th anniversary of the attempt to assassinate Hitler in vain. In the poster, Paik collaged Fluxus scores with different articles and illustrations alluding to issues of dictatorship and violence such as the Algerian War and the brutal torture of Japanese Samurai. In addition to his signature, Paik added “Aachen” in red and “Karl der große(Charlemagne)” in red and blue.