ART-PRESENTATION: Humor Has It

The exhibition, “Humor Has It” shows a large collection of Fluxus art and is intended to view Nam June Paik and Fluxus artists from a perspective of humor. Humor is a useful strategy in stating one’s stance. Jokes that trigger laughter allow us to express subversive thoughts metaphorically. Also, humor presents the possibilities to dismantle canons and conventions openly. Humor in gestures of objection, mockery, irony, liberation, or destruction can be an effective means in cracking the social status quo. The exhibition looks into Fluxus artists and Paik who challenged the traditional values of society and institutional art from an angle of humor.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Nam June Paik Art Center Archive

“Humor Has It” features about 200 Fluxus artworks and archival collections of around 30 artists from Korea and abroad. The exhibition is comprised of 9 stories, and Fluxus Theater and Shop. Part of the installation will change later this year. First half of the exhibition period: 1/4-29/8/2021. Second half of the exhibition period: 4/9/2021-2/2/2022.  Fluxus, a loose but revolutionary art network, was born in the late 1950s in Europe and USA. Many artists united and disunited freely to challenge the boundaries of high art in order to present a new form of art that everybody could enjoy. In a rapidly changing society of the 1960s, Fluxus also made critical attempts on social problems through its radical movements. At the center of Fluxus that dealt with issues of art and society in a witty and humorous manner was Nam June Paik. His sensational and provocative performances before his video art are considered representative works of Fluxus. Paik used his body as a medium, composed sound in a new way, engaged actively with audiences, and posed questions like Zen riddles.  Visitors can see the activities of Fluxus artists through photographs and videos. Some works of the exhibition are:

Klaus Barisch, “É tude for Pianoforte, Atelier Mary Bauermeister, Cologne” (1960): Nam June Paik was greatly influenced by John Cage’s music, as he once mentioned that his life could be divided into B.C., “Before Cage” and A.D., “After [Cage’s] Death”. Paik performed “Étude for Pianoforte” with John Cage at Mary Bauermeister’s atelier in Cologne. Paik started by playing Chopin’s piece, and stopped soon after to cut off Cage’s necktie. Afterwards Paik poured shampoo onto Cage’s and David Tudor’s hair. In this rather radical performance, Cage’s perspective on music was leavened with a twist of Paik’s humor.

Takehisa Kosugi, “South No. 2 (to Nam June Paik)” (1964): is a tribute to Nam June Paik, taking  the English translation of Paik’s name “Nam which means south. It is a performance of an extremely slowed-down pronunciation of the word “south” once for 15 minutes. Kosugi’s performances are characterized by the act of excessively stretching a daily word or action for long so as to erase its original purpose and search for the possibility of offering it a new artistic meaning. Kosugi performed this piece in the opening ceremony of the exhibition co-organized by Nam June Paik Art Center and Talbot Rice Gallery of the University of Edinburgh for the 2013 Edinburgh International Festival.

George Brecht, “Name Kit” (1965): Following the idea of the “Fluxkit” that George Maciunas conceived in 1964, Fluxus artists produced multiple editions of kits encompassing a selection of miscellaneous objects and paper as graphic scores for the user to read or manipulate, as with interactive games. The kits were packed together in a small attaché case for sale, which was first advertised in the fourth Fluxus newspaper, FLuxus cc fiVe ThReE that also contained Nam June Paik’s essay, “Afterlude to the Exposition of Experimental Television” (1964). This Fluxkit is one of George Brecht’s Games and Puzzles entitled Name Kit. Inside are five small dices in different forms, two rubber stamps, and a piece of paper with the instruction, “spell your name”.

Nam June Paik, “Zen for Film” (1965): With the sound of a running film projector, traces of light, dust, and scratches are projected onto the empty screen. Nam June Paik’s “Zen for Film” visualizes the materiality of film, and its visually vacant screen with auditory white noise presents a new spatial experience. This work can be categorized into the group of Paik’s Zen series, such as “Zen for TV”, “Zen for Walking”, and “Zen for Head”. The work was premiered at a Fluxus festival organized by George Maciunas in 1964, and shown again at New Cinema Festival directed by Jonas Mekas in 1965, where Paik carried out a performance in front of a running projector. Paik also created a “Fluxkit” with a piece of film and a nail to produce a Fluxus multiple of this installation work.

Nam June Paik, “First Portable TV” (1973): Erik Andersch, a Fluxus collector and a close friend of Paik, acquired and recorded his works while Paik stayed in Germany working as a professor in Dusseldorf. “First Portable TV” is one of the main works that Nam June Paik Art Center purchased from Andersch in 2009. For this work, Paik used a baking frame commonly used in German households, with its metal part painted in black while leaving the shape of a monitor unpainted at the center. The bakeware has an iron plate having vertical bars densely furrowed, which look like scanning lines, and the sides of the wooden board are shaped as handles. Paik linked this to his anticipation of the future television to carry around easily anywhere.

Peter Moore, “Fluxus Sonata No. 4, Anthology Film Archives, New York” (1975): During the construction of the new Anthology Film Archives site on 80 Wooster Street, New York, in 1973, Nam June Paik performed a series of the “Fluxus Sonata” in the venue, beginning with “Fluxus Sonata No. 1”. The photograph shows a performance of “Fluxus Sonata No. 4” in 1975. In front of several turntables, Paik put an LP on one of them and listened carefully with his arms crossed; and then he moved to another turntable to activate another LP. With the two vinyl records rotating simultaneously, he oscillated between the phonographs, interrupting and spinning them with his hands. Physically intervening in the operation of record players, this performance is much like today’s DJing.

Manfred Leve, “Hommage à Jean-Pierre Wilhelm, Dusseldorf” (1978), Nam June Paik asked Manfred Leve to take photographs of those seemingly meaningless actions. The venue was where Galerie 22 used to be, the gallery where Paik’s
“Hommage à John Cage” (1959) was first shown. At that time, the twenty-five-year-old Paik was unsuccessfully striving to premiere his first composition at the International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt. It was Jean-Pierre Wilhelm, the owner of Galerie 22, who offered a hand to this disappointed young artist. Since then, Wilhelm became a powerful patron of Fluxus artists including Paik.

Nam June Paik, “Joseph Beuys, In Memoriam George Maciunas” (1982): When George Maciunas, one of the leading figures of Fluxus, passed away, Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik staged a memorial concert in Dusseldorf. The work created in recollection of their performance consists of Paik’s Urklavier, a miniature piano made out of tree twigs, Beuys’s felt wedge, along with an LP of their duet. The record jacket used the photograph of Maciunas wearing a gorilla mask, and Urklavier is a continuation of Paik’s “Urmusik”, a Fluxus object which is a wooden crate with a can attached and assorted strings suspended to produce a sound.

Nam June Paik, “Beuys Vox” (1988): The work as produced by Nam June Paik to honor Joseph Beuys after his death, and the work reflects the in-depth relationship between the two artists. Apparent from the title, “Beuys’ voice,” this work is composed of various works by Beuys. Highlights of “Beuys Vox” include: a photograph that captured both artists at the Zero group exhibition in 1961 when the two did not know each other very well; a memo with “Josef” written in Paik’s book (1962); photographs of the 24 Hours performance in 1965, which both artists participated; and photographs and LP Records of their joint performance, “In Memorium George Maciunas” (1978).

Works by: Nam June Paik, Erik Andersch, Ay-O, Klaus Barisch, Joseph Beuys, George Brecht, John Cage, Willem de Ridder, Robert Filliou, Geoffrey Hendricks, Dick Higgins, Takehisa Kosugi, Manfred Leve, George Maciunas, Jonas Mekas, Manfred Montwé, Peter Moore, Charlotte Moorman, Yoko Ono, Benjamin Patterson, Mieko (Chieko) Shiomi, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Daniel Spoerri, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Robert Watts, Emmett Williams, Jud Yalkut and La Monte Young.

Photo: Nam June Paik, First Portable TV, 1973, wooden bakeware, ink, 7.5×32×2cm, Courtesy Nam June Paik Art Center

Info: Curator: Park Sang Ae, Co-Curator: Park Hyejin, Nam June Paik Art Center, 10 Paiknamjune-ro, Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, Duration: 1/4/2021-2/2/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, https://njpac-en.ggcf.kr