Nam June Paik Art Center, Yongin-si, South Korea

Nam June Paik Art Center is an art gallery in Giheung-gu, Yongin, in the Seoul Capital Area, South Korea. It opened in 2008 and hosts both permanent and temporary exhibitions. It is named after the Korean American artist Nam June Paik, whose work is included in its permanent collection.

Nam June Paik (백남준 白南準 1932~2006) was a pioneer media artist who applied television, video, satellite television, laser, and other technology to his experimental and creative artwork. Promoting global communication and encounters through art, Paik has been dubbed “a leading artist who was a scientist, a philosopher, and an engineer” and “a true, gifted genius and a futurist with great foresight.” The Nam June Paik Art Center opened in October 2008 in honor of Paik’s spirit of openness, diversification, and harmony. As Paik mentioned, it was built to be his permanent home, researching and building on his ideals and artistic activities.

“The museum’s exhibits follow no real order of chronology or renown, thereby inviting visitors to make up their own minds as to the merit and significance of each work.”

Opened to the public in 2008, the Nam June Paik Art Center aspires to revive the generosity, criticality and interdisciplinary nature characteristic of both Nam June Paik’s work and life. To fulfill the artist’s wish building ‘the house where the spirit of Nam June Paik lives on’, Nam June Paik Art Center develops creative and critical programs on the artist.

The enigmatic mathematical symbols used for the main logo image of Nam June Paik Art Center are derived from the numerical expression that Paik used in an article for the magazine De/collage No.3 in 1963 and re-used commemorating his 54th birthday. They represent Paik’s rich imagination and unique sense of humor. The logo image shows that when a question is reversed and transformed into a new question, endless transformations and recurrences take place: it incorporates the identity of Nam June Paik Art Center aiming to be an experimental space that doesn’t cease to question established answers.

History
The Nam June Paik Art Center celebrated its 2nd anniversary in 2006 and celebrated its completion on April 30, 2008, and officially opened on October 9. Nam June Paik Art Center, located at 85 Sanggal – dong, Giheung – gu, Yongin – si, Gyeonggi – do, signed Nam June Paik ‘s contract to establish Nam June Paik Museum in 2002.

The first director, Lee Young-chul, co-organized the opening ceremony with Nam June Paik Art Center’s Curriculum Lab and held the NOW JUMP Festival for 4 months on October 8, 2008. The festival is a so-called ‘station’ system consisting of three stations. Station 1 was a permanent exhibition of Nam June Paik’s monumental art world in various contexts and perspectives, and continues to be the foundation of the permanent exhibition of Nam June Paik Art Center. Station 2 is a revolutionary festival where international art performances such as Romeo Castellucci, Boris Sharmatz, Rimini Protocol, etc., are seen at the museum by Kim Sung – hee, the artistic director of the festival spring. It was a planned exhibition consisting of. The festival, which lasted over four months, is recorded as a new step in understanding and advancing the complex and multi-layered life and art of Nam June Paik as a new stage.

The arts laboratory of Nam June Paik Art Center was the first in Korea to use exhibition curriculum and research activities under the full-scale global network suitable for Nam June Paik’s international status, using foreign curators Tobias Burger and Claudia Pestana. In addition, the public works, education, and publishing sectors were eagerly deployed to make the art of Nam June Paik better understood. Exhibition of Nam June Paik Art Center exhibition Super Highway First Stop, an exhibition of mythology – electronic technology, random access penguins cross the mountains the trickster makes the world media landscape, as the pace of Paik’s TV Commune Paik be reorganized exhibition on a quarterly basis as permanent unfolded.

2010 January Nam June Paik Art Center is to launch a chulpantim writings by Nam June Paik is directly authored European researchers Edith Decker and said Melinda Revere was like Edit: “Paik horse in to Cristo” was Korea’s first published a translation, In March, Co-author Lee Young-chul and researcher Kim Nam-soo published a resource book, The Return of Nam June Paik, which collected the unique code of Nam June Paik art. These two books are regarded as basic data to spark the research boom. Since then, he has published a magazine with international artists, curators, and owners called NJP Reader.

Gift of Nam June Paik is the two Paik International Symposium of unloading February 2009, one “perspective shift and temporality” was held as the theme, the European friends of Nam June Paik Marie Bauer Meister bajon Brac artists such as gimjinseok gimsugi hamseongho domestic intelligence such as that with Participated. In September 2009, the 2nd International Symposium, “Re tying Gordian’s Knots Again” was held, and Jung Joon- hwan, Jung-Hwan Jung, participated by Susan Neubourger David Jerbib. The third international symposium, Archeology of New Media, was held in December 2010, with John Lekman Jean-Paul Parjier and Richard Fangha.

Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation under the Nam June Paik Art Center in 2010 that it plans to establish a ‘totality Paik Media Institute, a comprehensive study of the second half, including personnel from various fields have meaningful private psychiatric art of Nam June Paik Art 2010 January 28, he said. The Nam June Paik Art Center will establish the Nam June Paik Total Media Research Institute in the Art Center in Sanggal – dong, Giheung – gu, Yongin-si.In addition to art history majors, various majors such as physics, sociology, anthropology, and music sciences will participate as researchers.

Since then, the plan for the institute has been vacated, and Nam June Paik Art Center welcomed Park Man – woo, the second director. Now, the third director, Seo Jin-seok, is active.

Architecture
The architectural design of the Nam June Paik Art Center was recommended by the Union of International Artists (UIA) in 2003 for an international competition of 430 people. Designed in collaboration with young German architects Kirsten Schemel and Marina Stankovic of the KSMS Shemel Stankovik architecture office in Berlin, Germany. The art center is characterized by multiple layers of mirrors, an exhibition room, a video storage room and a multipurpose space. The Nam June Paik Art Center is a total of 5,600 sqm (60,300sft) and consists of three floors above ground and two stories below ground. It was first opened to the public on April 30, 2008, with the completion ceremony.

Architectural Awards
Won the grand prize at the 2008 Korean Architecture Awards (2008.9.22)
Received the Grand Prize in the 4th Korean Civil Engineering Technology Grand Prize in the Architecture Entertainment Division (2008.12.18)
Received the Silver Prize in the approval section for Gyeonggi-do Architecture and Culture Awards (2009.11.27)
Awarded Excellence Award (Good Minister of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs) (2009.12.09)

Facility introduction
Nam June Paik Art Center has 2 underground levels, 3 ground levels, and a total floor area of 5,605 m 2 and is equipped with permanent and planning exhibition rooms, video storage rooms, multi-purpose rooms, and convenience facilities.

The museum exhibited 2,285 pieces of works, including the first-ever collection of Nam June Paik’s first collection, ‘The Elephant Carriage’, ‘TV Garden’, and ‘Three Elements’ that shape three types of triangles, squares and circles with laser beams.

The admission fee is 4000 won, and Gyeonggi citizens can receive a 50% discount. Recently, the discount rate for Gyeonggi-do has fallen to 25%.

Education room
It is designed for small-scale educational practice of 30 seats (60㎡). Through various workshops and various hands-on learning, we will develop into a space that will lead the development of creativity and spread of the spirit of Nam June Paik.

Seminar room
About 90 seats are available for various educational programs, workshops, open lectures, seminars and video screenings. A space where humanities, science and art can meet and develop.

Nam June Paik Art Center International Art Award
In 2009, Nam June Paik Art Center hosted the first ‘Nam June Paik Art Center International Art Award’ to be selected as installation artist Lee Seung-taek, choreographer Ahn Eun-mi, media artist Ciel Floye, electronic artist Robert Adrian X, etc. Was awarded by French sociologist and philosopher Bruno Latour. The International Art Award was held in 2009 to pay attention to Nam June Paik’s art world where symmetry of science and technology was combined to discover artists who could become the second Paik Nam June Paik or to discourse Nam June Paik’s art from a more creative and expanded perspective.