On view: September 25 - November 22, 2025

Tuesday - Friday: 10 AM - 6 PM / Saturday: 11 AM - 5 PM
It is closed on Sunday and Monday.

Venue: Korean Cultural Center New York

122 E 32nd Street, New York, NY, 10016 (1st & 2nd Floors)

Opening Ceremony

Wednesday, September 24 (6-8 PM)

The year 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation. In commemoration, the Korean Cultural Center New York, in collaboration with the Nam June Paik Art Center and the Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-Koo Foundation, presents Nam June Paik: The Communicator.

Nam June Paik (1932–2006), the founder of video art, was a pioneering artist who freely crossed the boundaries between art and technology. Yet he was more than a mere media experimenter. Through technology, he sought to open new possibilities for connection—between individuals, across cultures, and through shared sensibilities. Above all, he was “a communicator,” an artist of exchange and resonance.

For Paik, art was not an object of contemplation but a site of participation, encounter, and communion. Traversing tradition and modernity, East and West, analog and digital, he realized through art the very spirit of cultural connectivity that underpins today’s K-Culture.

His iconic works, such as TV Cello and robot sculptures, fused electronic media with traditional forms, creating a wholly new visual language. By transforming television sets into instruments or human-like figures, Paik playfully dismantled the boundaries between machine and human, art and everyday life, performance and play. His robots, built from stacked televisions, symbolized his belief that technology could extend human existence and inspire new ways of imagining the world. These works continue to ask us: What is communication?

“It is the duty of the artist to think about the future.
I am an artist, but I have no interest in conventional art.
My interest lies in the entire world.
For me, every day is a matter of communication.”

- Nam June Paik

Communication was his lifelong pursuit and the essence of art. His works sought the liberation of the senses through technology, envisioning art freed from boundaries and limitations.

In this light, his artistic philosophy resonates deeply with the idea of “liberation” today. If liberation is not only about recovering national sovereignty but also about freeing humanity from the confines of time, space, ideology, and thought, then Paik’s art becomes its living, contemporary embodiment.

This exhibition also highlights his enduring commitment to younger generations and to intergenerational dialogue in art. On the first floor, Rehabilitation of Genghis Khan (1993) is presented alongside an emerging media artist’s work inspired by Paik. This juxtaposition demonstrates how his artistic spirit continues to thrive today—through evolving technologies and new creative voices—while opening pathways toward the future.

Featured Artworks

About the Artist

* Photograph: Paul Garrin Collection, Nam June Paik Art Center Archives

Nam June Paik, born in Seoul in 1932, is celebrated as the pioneer of media art. He studied aesthetics at the University of Tokyo, writing his thesis on the music of Arnold Schoenberg, before moving to Germany in 1956. There, he immersed himself in philosophy and contemporary music, while engaging with avant-garde artists who challenged traditional artistic norms.

In 1963, Paik presented his groundbreaking solo exhibition Exposition of Music – Electronic Television, where he manipulated television circuits to create new forms of art. This marked the beginning of his lifelong exploration of media as an artistic medium. After relocating to the United States in 1964, he expanded his practice with video works, large-scale installations, and the invention of the video synthesizer, integrating sound, performance, and technology into an entirely new artistic language.

From the 1980s onward, Paik pioneered global satellite projects such as Good Morning, Mr. Orwell (1984), breaking down barriers between avant-garde art and popular culture. In 1993, he represented Germany at the Venice Biennale, where his work on the theme of the artist as a nomad earned him the Golden Lion Award. His practice continued to evolve into laser technologies, even after he suffered a stroke in the mid-1990s, and he remained artistically active until his passing in Miami in 2006.

Paik envisioned the role of the artist as one of imagining the future. Through his experimental and creative use of technology, he sought to foster global communication and connection. Often described as “a scientist, philosopher, and engineer rolled into one,” Paik remains one of the most visionary and truly modern artists of our time.