Dr. Wulf Herzogenrath, the former director of the Kunsthalle Bremen, one of leading curators in the world who knows Nam June Paik very well. As the curator who organized Paik’s first retrospective show in 1976, what was Paik like in his memory? What made this first generation of video art curator deal with a new type of art? Let’s share his view on where Paik is placed in art history and his precious memory of their friendship as well.

Dr. Herzogenrath was elected as the youngest director of Kölnischer Kunstverein at the age of 28, and then worked as a chief curator for the Nationalgalerie Berlin. He was appointed as the director the Kunsthalle Bremen in 1994 and had served for 17 years until he retired in 2011. After receiving a PhD with the dissertation on Oskar Schlemmer’s murals, he got acquainted with video art by chance at Folkwang Museum. Since then, he has curated exhibitions bringing together modern and contemporary art. His life-long friendship with Nam June Paik started from 1974 when they first encountered each other at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. After that, he became one of close curators who watched Paik up-close and supported him. Dr. Herzogenrath calls Paik an artist who gives a new definition to video art.

Nam June Paik used television as an artistic medium for the first time, and also induced the concept of Living Sculpture by collaborating with Charlotte Moorman, a classical cellist. Inspired by John Cage, Paik had the sensibility to express music beyond music itself, which finally led him to develop a new field, video art. With quick discernment and intelligence, Paik became a pioneer of video art. Standing high as a great artist with unique creativity, Paik was open to collaboration and in good relations with other professionals. Paik was a more inimitable, flexible, experimental, and generous person than anyone else. Although apparently eccentric all the time, Paik was a talented artist. Recognizing Paik’s genius, Karlheinz Stockhausen allowed only Paik to perform freely without any fixed score in his theatrical piece, Originale. When his work, Fish Flies on Sky was accused of the fire in the museum, Paik researched into the cause of the fire very seriously so that he could prove the fire was caused not by the television in his work but by a cable for sound installation. If television was still misunderstood as the cause of fire, today’s art museum collection would face a totally different situation regarding new media art.

To Dr. Herzogenrath, Nam June Paik is not just a genius artist who passed away, but an enjoyable friend still alive within him. While talking about his good old memories with Paik, his eyes looked like those of a mischievous boy as if bragging about their brave stories. Nam June Paik, a master of video art is still alive close at hand through his works of art as well as the reminiscence of his friend.

• Foreword Manu Park (Director, Nam June Paik Art Center)
• Prologue Sang Ae Park (Archivist, Nam June Paik Art Center)
• Interview I
• Interview II
• The anti-technological technology of Nam June Paik’s robots Wulf Herzogenrath
• Biography

ISBN 978-89-97128-06-8 93600
10,000 won