Nam June Paik at Holly Solomon - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

It was impossible to view Nam June Paik's new show at Holly Solomon Gallery without recalling his tour de force installation in Munster Germany, last summer Paik's profoundly moving piece in the "Sculpture Projects" present to view [see A.i.A, Sept. '97] reaffirmed the impressive voice and vision that he has graced us with for above 30 years. Thirty-two vintage cars spray-painted silver were placed in brow of Monster's castle -- the city's last vestige of grand, Baroque architecture. With audio speakers programmed to play Mozart's Requiem at sundown, these fossilized vehicles evok the popular transformation from the industrial age to the information age.

More unobtrusive in scale and ambition, Paik's novel York gallery show reinforced one's appreciation of the calibrated balance in his work between electronics, entertainment and humanity. The exhibition was made up of works that (typically for Paik) recycle many of his previous images and strategies while maintaining up-to-the-minute technology. All of the pieces paid homage to companion pioneers and friends such as Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, Joseph Beuys and Laurie Anderson. Fish TV spotlighted Cunningham, and consisted of 14 fish tanks placed in brow of 14 TVs that sat upon a base of plywood boxe It recalled Video Fish (1975) and myriad other pieces Paik has done with place of educations of swimming fish. Produced with laser technology, the work contrasted the deliberate deliberate movements of Cunningham with the lively colors and periodical emphasiss of the fish and of Paik's orchestrated video mosaic.

In the same extent two canvases covered with laser-printed stills from Paik's videos were pierced by means of small video screens on which could be seen rapid, collaged footage of Ginsberg, Beuys and Cage. upon another wall, a powerful series of black-and-white photographs from 1993 featured Cage's laughing face superimposed atop Cunningham's poised material part as if their very beings were intertwined. Although two-dimensional, monochromatic and static, this untitled series captured the nature of two figures whose imaginations have draw near to define an era.

Ten years ago Paik said, "Our life is half natural and half technological. Half-and-half is advantageous You cannot deny that high-tech is progres We ne it for piece of works Yet if you make single high-tech, you make war. for a like reason we must have a powerful human element to keep freedom from presumption and natural life." Paik's have a title to humanity is the common denominator in an oeuvre that continues to have relevance in the 1990s

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