Hong Kong, September 17 – November 7, 2015, Hong Kong, http://www.gagosian.com/
A minutely setup overview of late NJP works, as good as can be expected at Gagosian. The exhibition followed the “announcement of the gallery’s worldwide representation of his estate”, as the first sentence of the press release noted.
The late Nam Jun Paik work creates quite ambiguous feelings in me: TV-robots, vintage TV sets covered with art-brut like oil paint scribbles, countless remakes of the iconic TV-Buddha, etc.
While I was walking through the exhibition, I couldn’t get one imaginary dream-like image out of my head: A gallerist, standing with a whip, next to the old artist, handicapped by a stroke, forcing him to produce scribbles on old TV cases under threat of not getting any lunch if he doesn’t produce enough NJP signatures and of getting a whip of saying any word of refusal. A few years later, an exhausted NJP is lying on a hospital bed. Now he is too old and weak to even scribble on TV cases. However the gallerist still persists, making him to at least scribble on a paper notebook in bed, up to the minute NJP passes out. Rest in Peace, NJP…
