Twenty years after Nam June Paik inaugurated an art form by tinkering with the innards of television sets to create unprecedented images, he is being honored with aretrospective at the Whitney Museum. While his work is still controversial, few deny that this P. T. Barnum of the avant-garde has brought a new perspective to television. VIDE ARTS GURU slightly built, shy man, he appears to and possibly controversial, event. tapes byup-to 10 artists a month in its By D. C. Delnison find everything, even his own work, The Whitney show is also significant viewing room. Elsewhere, media cen- somewhat amusing. As he turns on in that it represents the first time a ters like the Boston Film/Video eventeen television sets the 17 sets that hang suspended from major museum has honored a video Foundation and San Francisco's hang from the ceiling in the ceiling, his comment, in his apho- artistwith a retrospective. Video Free America have also be- Nam June Pack's loft in ristic, Korean-inflected English, is At the reception in Pack's loft, come established and productive. lower Manhattan; an- characteristically oblique: "Ceiling, many of those present expressed the Unlike the first generation of video other 24, standing on I think, is the last undeveloped in- hope that the show would bring video artists, who were primarily sculptors their sides, line the terior space in Manhattan ." He points art into the art-world mainstream. and painters and simply dabbled in wall. And there are per up to an energetic videotape collage Characteristically, Paik himself is the new medium, many of the artists haps 40 more sets scattered around of a dancing Merce Cunningham, a not so sure that is where it belongs. "I whose work is currently exhibited at this drafty fifth-floor atelier. Many of gesturing John Cage and abstract think video art is half in the art world thesegalleries are members of theso- them havehad their circuitry rewired waves of color. "Also notice that elec- and half out," he said at one point in called TV Generation. (One of the or their broadcast signals manipu- tronic motion, unlike mechanical mo- the evening. Then, turning over a best-known of these emerging video lated to suit Pack's esthetic aims ; a tion, has nogravity." nearby technical diagram, he drew artists, Bill Viola, described his youth few, clustered in a corner and sur- Nam June Paik has always been an two overlapping circles in pencil, in New York as a "seven-channel rounded by electrician's tape and unlikely - and quite disarming - labeling one "ART" and the other childhood.") coaxial cable, are missing their back 20th-century media figure. A tena- "INFORMATION." He pointed to Video art matters to these young panels: works in progress by the man cious student of Zen Buddhism who their common area, filling it in with practitioners because it attempts to who for almost 20 years has been con- neither smokes nor drinks, Paik does his pencil. "I think I am here," he explore the expressive possibilities of sidered the pre-eminent video artist not drive a car, has yet to buya stereo said. a medium that has grown so powerful in the United States and Europe. and has remained almost totally unin- elevision images are and pervasive during their lifetime. On a recent Sunday evening, when terestedin broadcast television. None produced when charged The challenge implied in all video art Paik, dressed in a style that can best of the more than 100 television sets in electrons strike the in- is not only the attempt to change the be described as disheveled, is host to his loft are hooked up to an antenna. terior, phosphor-coated viewer's perception of the cathode- a reception for two visiting French Yet Pack's admirers consider him an surface of a cathode-ray ray tube, to cause people to see it as video artists, the scene resembles artistic video pioneer of the first tube. In 1962, Nam June something other than simply a tool for nothing so much as a television-repair rank, sort of a cross between Roone Paik, then a young delivering large audiences to adver- shop that is running three months be- Arledge and Marcei Duchamp. Most avant-garde musician, bought 13 sec- tisers, but also to provide an interpre- hind schedule. probably agree with the influential ondhand television sets and spent tation of the world in the context of a Very few of the guests that evening French film journal Cahiers du Cina- about a year in his studio in Cologne, massive communication explosion. appear to be surprised by the sur- ma, whose cover story on Paik de- Germany, exploring ways to manipu- Today, many art students regard roundings . Many of those present scribed his work as "toujours amu- late these charged particles. Eventu- television as an attractive and still have already seen these same televi- sants, souvent beaux, quelquejois ally, by interfering with the cathode- largely unexplored artistic frontier. sion sets in European galleries and sublimes." ray tube's electromagnetic field, he Pack's influence on this second gen- museums. Later in the evening, some That estimation is far from unani- was able to splash these electrons eration of video artists is palpable. ofthem even make requests. mous, however. Some critics are against the screen in patterns that Last year, when the Massachusetts Eventually, Paik obliges by turning decidedly less tolerant of Pack's were unfamiliar and evocative . The Institute of Technology's Council for on small groups of sets. The effect is futuristic declarations and wild following year, when Paik exhibited the Arts invited Paik to the school for difficult to categorize: One multi- Dadaist tendencies; others still re- these electronically doctored sets at a series of workshops and a lecture, it monitor collection features quick cut- gard him as a minor artist, a special- the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, was a major event. "We had the larg- away shots of soaring airplanes and ist working in a medium of dubious West Germany, the term "video art" est crowd we've ever had for a film- tropical fish juxtaposed with abstract esthetic significance. "Mr. Pack's formally entered the esthetic vocabu- video event," said Benjamin Ber- washes of neon-bright color. The 24 pronouncements abound in exagger- lary. gery, a lecturer at M.I.T. "There was sets along the wail, however, have ated promises his art shows no evi- Nearly 20 years later, "video art" adefinite sense that people were com- been tamperedwith to theopposite ef- dence of keeping," wrote the former still elicits quizzical looks. The vast ing to see the master." And last fect. These televisions, 12 of which New York Times art critic Hilton majority of the work remains largely December, when Paik made a similar Paik purchased at a hotel-renovation Kramer in 1974 in a review of one of inaccessible to the general public; appearance at Video Free America in sale last year, have been altered in a Pack's manywell-attendedexhibits at certainly very little of it reaches the San Francisco, the crowd was so way that reduces their broadcast sig- a midtown gallery . "The art one actu- living-room tube. Yet recently, there large that many had to watch the lec- nals to an elegant pattern of simple, ally experiences is rather modest; its has been a definite rise in interest in ture on, appropriately enough, a tele- stationary bars ofelectronic light. delights are flickering, small-scale video art, particularly among eager As he turns these collections on, and fragmentary, and quickly dissi- video students at colleges and univer- In his SoHo loft, Paik perches Paik offers surprisingly little in the pated." sities. The Museum of Modern Art in front ofapyramidoftelevi- way ofcommentary orexplanation. A All of which should make Pack's and the Whitney Museum both run ac- sions that paint a towering self- major restrospective, opening this tive video-art programs. The Kitchen portrait. His best pieces are a D. C. Denison is a staff writer for The Friday at the Whitney Museum of in Manhattan, perhaps video art's deft combination ofvisual inno- Boston Phoenix. American Art in New York, a lively, liveliest showcase, screens video- vation and ironic commentary. vision monitor in an adjoining probably also responsible for room. his relative success on broad- fomnerly $19 There are a number of rea- cast television, where his le S14 sons for Paik's pre-eminent work has appeared more position in the small world of often than any other video ollect arainbowofcolors for at XwVs video art. For one thing, artist's. His first commission tt's the blouse with everything going for it-simple clean lines, easy care polyester, though he has always worked came in 1968, when Paik, in a medium that is essen- along with five other artists, and a choice of colors that make it hard to pickjust one. Mom will proudly say over tially corporate in nature, he was invited to WGBH, the and over again "It's My Mothers Day gift," because she'll wear ifagain and has succeeded in developing public broadcasting station in again-with a suit with pants, dressed up or down. Choose from turquoise, violet, his own unmistakable per- Boston, to work.on a program bright green, fuchsia, brightyellow, berry, grape, banana, white, brown or . sonal approach to television, about experimental artists, royal Sizes 8 which puts standard video "The Medium Is the Medi- to 18. sale, $14. By Rendezvous. Westsider Blouses, (D.080), 4th floor, Macy's Herald fare into a new perspective.