Untitled
Date/ Undated
Artist(Credit Line)/ Nam June Paik
Classification/ Painting
Dimensions / 71.1×101.6cm
Color bars of the television test pattern are combined with Chinese characters. Nam June Paik often employed letters as part of painterly elements in his drawings and paintings. From the right-hand side of this work, Paik filled each bar with such characters as follows: to compare (比), large (泰), to cumulate (畜), the teacher (師), to allow (訟), the sky (乾), the land (坤), to thrive (昌), to be used (需), the hair (毛), to step on (履), the family (家), the house (戶), the human (人), the nation (國), in between (介), to achieve(成), ten thousand (萬), small (小). He might have written them as an exercise to think their meanings over and over again. The repetition and combination of these characters that look like coded sequences prompt the viewer to attempt to decode them.
Color bars of the television test pattern are combined with Chinese characters. Nam June Paik often employed letters as part of painterly elements in his drawings and paintings. From the right-hand side of this work, Paik filled each bar with such characters as follows: to compare (比), large (泰), to cumulate (畜), the teacher (師), to allow (訟), the sky (乾), the land (坤), to thrive (昌), to be used (需), the hair (毛), to step on (履), the family (家), the house (戶), the human (人), the nation (國), in between (介), to achieve(成), ten thousand (萬), small (小). He might have written them as an exercise to think their meanings over and over again. The repetition and combination of these characters that look like coded sequences prompt the viewer to attempt to decode them.
