James Cohan Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of important works by the late pioneer of video art, Nam June Paik, opening on April 14th and running through May 30. The exhibition consists of a number of works dating from 1972 to 1994, among them are Paik's robot sculptures, live feed installations and other video sculptures.
Commonly hailed as the father of video art, Nam June Paik asserted in 1965 that the television cathode-ray tube would someday replace the canvas. Known as one of the major proponents of the Fluxus movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Paik worked closely with artists John Cage, Joseph Beuys and Charlotte Moorman among others. He balanced a Utopian philosophy with a technical pragmatism and was known for creating works that drew on chance encounters between ideas, the object and the public. Paik's interest in the phenomenon of electronic communication led him to make predictions about how the technological changes were going to affect our daily lives. Forty years removed, we now understand the prescience of Paik's concepts of the "global village" and the "electronic super highway" were, which foreshadowed how technology would come to connect diverse cultures at high speeds in the pre-Internet age. The Korean-born artist died at age 73 in January 2006.
Installed in the main gallery space is TV Bed (1972-91) a sculpture that was created for Paik's frequent collaborator and muse Charlotte Moorman. Paik's sense of humor is evident in the selection of a bed as a tribute to a woman he deeply admired.
Paik began constructing robots in 1964, which developed out of his fascination with remote-control toys. He built robot sculptures to honor his heroes. In this exhibition, the gallery is excited to have several important robot sculptures including Gertrude Stein (1990) depicted with her Victrola-horn arms and video womb, and Beuys Voice (1990), a loving portrayal of one of Paik's major influences, Joseph Beuys, identified by his signature gray felt hat. On a more subversive and comic note, Paik created Watchdog II (1997) a large dog robot named as such for the surveillance camera at the end of its tail and his loud speaker ears.
Included in the exhibition are Paik's "live feed" works in which the closed circuit image displayed on the TV monitor is real-time video captured on camera. For Paik the use of live feed video was his exploration of the increasing blurred line between the real and the represented in the electronic age. In his signature installation Enlightenment Compressed (1994), a bronze statue of Buddha sits to reflect upon his image on a television monitor. The Buddha meditating upon himself points to the self-reflexivity of the experience of the television viewer� a wry comment that equates the TV viewing experience to the practice of Zen meditation as means to achieve a higher level of consciousness.
Over the past 50 years Nam June Paik has exhibited in many major museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York (Projects: Nam June Paik, 1977), Whitney Museum of American Art (Nam June Paik, 1982), Centre Georges Pompidou (Nam June Paik, 1982), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Nam June Paik, 1989), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul (Nam June Paik Retrospective: Videotime, 1992), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (The Worlds of Nam June Paik, 2000). He represented Germany at Venice Biennale in 1993. Paik has received numerous grants and awards from, among many others, the Guggenheim Museum, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Film Institute; Will Grohmann Award, Goslar Emperor's Ring and UNESCO's Picasso Medal.
Paik's works are in the collection of a number of institutions, such as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington D.C.), Mus�e d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington D.C.), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), amongst others
ROXY PAINE: Dendroid Drawings and Maquettes May 1 - 30, 2009
James Cohan Gallery is pleased to present ROXY PAINE: Dendroid Drawings and Maquettes, from May 1 through May 30, 2009. The exhibition will include a scale model of Maelstrom as well as drawing studies from the artist's well-known series of stainless steel Dendroid sculptures. The gallery exhibition runs concurrent to Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom, a site-specific installation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden on view from April 28 through October 25, 2009. Maelstrom is a 130-foot long by 45-foot wide monumental stainless steel sculpture and is the largest work to have ever been installed on the Met roof, New York City's premiere site for outdoor sculpture. More information is available on the Met's website http://www.metmuseum.org
We are also pleased to announce the publication of the artist's first comprehensive monograph, ROXY PAINE, published by Prestel with a text by Eleanor Heartney, now available through the gallery. Working at the intersection between nature and technology, Roxy Paine creates works of art that expose the paradoxes inherent in our relationships with the natural and industrial worlds. Paine's pieces can take the form of startlingly realistic representations of plant life or robotic art-manufacturing machinery, though his stainless steel Dendroids straddle both approaches. This book presents works from each series of Paine's oeuvre to date with Heartney's insightful critical analysis. Roxy Paine's works raise existential questions about our place in the natural order and the extent to which we can draw a firm line between the processes of nature and those of technology. This beautifully designed 256-page volume includes 250 full-color illustrations.
Priced at $75, we are offering a special introductory launch price of $50 per copy (plus $7.50 for shipping and handling) for a limited time only. If you would like to make a purchase, please call or email Elizabeth Eames at 212 714 9500 or [email protected] or visit http://www.jamescohan.com/publications/roxy-paine_1/
Please join us at the gallery for a reception and book signing with the artist on Thursday, May 7th from 6 � 8 pm
