"Bye-Bye, Nam June Paik," the current exhibition at the Watari-Um Museum of Contemporary Art, is a loving tribute to an artist who has always been close to that Aoyama art space's heart.
Regarded as the father of video art, Nam June Paik, who was born in Seoul in 1932, died in January. Of all the remarkable things he did in five decades of creative experimentation, I think one anecdote in particular illustrates his character. It was 1965, and Paik had flown from Tokyo to New York in proud possession of the first-ever commercially available video camera, the Sony Portapak. Paik's taxi became locked in traffic due to a visit by Pope Paul VI. An excited Paik readied the video camera, and from the window of the cab, shot his first-ever tape as the papal motorcade passed. When Paik showed the video to friends that evening at the Cafe a Go Go, the impromptu event could be called the first-ever video art exhibition -- the genesis, indeed, of a new artistic medium.
Playful, personable and immensely talented, Paik was also a pioneer in the treatment of video imagery -- co-developing with video engineer Shuya Abe a method of manipulating and superimposing colors and forms on video.