TV Buddha

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TV-Buddha
Nam June Paik, 1974
Link to the picture
(Please note copyrights )

The TV-Buddha is a video - installation of the US video artist Nam June Paik in 1974, for which there are several variants. It is considered an "icon" of video art and is the beginning of a series of closed-circuit installations and video sculptures by the artist.

history

At Paik's fourth exhibition at Galleria Bonino in New York City , one wall was still blank. Paik came up with the idea of using the bronze statue of a seated Buddha from the 18th century, which he had once bought, as an objet trouvé for a video installation. He put the figure of Buddha on a pedestal and placed a portable television in front of him . He placed a video camera behind the television , which permanently showed an image of the Buddha on the television screen. The image of a Buddha meditating in front of his own image created the impression of a constant media cycle and an ironic contrast between the Buddhist deity , who represents Eastern thought and transcendence , and the television set as a symbol of modern Western media and technology . The work of art is interpreted in different ways. The art historian Irving Sandler said:

“Can't get [it] out of my mind. This sculpture of the sitting Buddha viewing his own image on a closed-circuit television screen is hilarious. An inanimate sculpture looking at its inanimate mirror images. The Buddha as a media star and couch potato in a Buddha sitcom. "

“I just can't get it out of my head. This sculpture of a seated Buddha watching his own image in a closed loop on the TV screen is hilarious. A motionless sculpture looking at its motionless reflection. The Buddha as a media star and couch potato in a Buddha sitcom . "

Culture journalist Philip Kennicott found:

"This isn't a mirror, but something else, a phantasmagorical double of the image, with a strange and uncanny power. You have the sense that if the Buddha's spectral TV image ever went off, the statue itself might disappear. Certainly it would lose the appearance of consciousness which Paik's clever arrangement has imputed to it. "

“This is not a mirror, but something else: a deceptive double image with a strange and uncanny power. One has the impression that the TV image of the Buddha would be extinguished forever if the statue itself disappeared. Surely she would then lose the semblance of consciousness that Paik's clever arrangement gave her. "

In the performance Two Buddhas watching TV in the same year at the art exhibition Projekt '74 in Cologne , Paik took a seat as "living Buddha" next to a wooden Buddha statue in front of a television set. This was taken as a statement by Paik that the opposition between spirituality and technology , as well as that between subject and object, is also embodied by himself.

Variants (selection)

  • TV Buddha , seated Buddha in front of a portable television set and video camera, 1974, Stedelijk Museum , Amsterdam
  • TV Buddha , Maitreya seated in front of portable television and video camera, 1976, Art Gallery of New South Wales , Sydney
  • Shigeko Kubota's Buddhas , three enthroned Buddhas, united in a wooden sculpture, sit opposite three small television monitors, each of which plays a video as a 30-minute endless loop, 1986, Museum Ludwig Collection , Cologne
  • TV Buddha for ducks , bronze figure of a Buddha in front of an empty television housing made of Bakelite and Plexiglas over a stream in Münster , temporary installation, 1986/1987
  • Small Buddha , Buddha figure in front of a candle that burns in an empty television case, 1989
  • Buddha Duchamp Beuys , statue of a Buddha enthroned in a layer of large pebbles in front of a television set, 1989
  • Waiting for UFO , three Buddha figures each (made of bronze, stone and concrete) in front of empty television housings, some arranged with plastic flowers, set up in three locations in a park, 1992, Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York
  • TV Buddha reincarnated , Buddha busts above a technical substructure, looking into a computer monitor connected to the Internet, 1994
  • TV Buddha , Buddha head in front of a screen with a video camera, bedded on earth that is filled into a square metal tub, 1997

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Kupp: What managers can learn from Beuys, Hirst and Madonna . Article from May 25, 2011 in the manager-magazin.de portal , accessed on December 26, 2015
  2. ↑ Mario Kramer: Nam June Paik: Old Candle, 1988 . PDF of the Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt am Main
  3. ^ Susanna Partsch: Modern Art. The 101 most important questions . Verlag CH Beck, 3rd edition, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57285-2 , p. 67 (Fig. 9)
  4. ↑ Martin Zeyn: Monitors look back . Article from January 31, 2006 in the taz.de portal , accessed on December 13, 2015
  5. ^ Faye Ran: A History of Installation Art and the Development of New Art Forms. Technology and the Hermeneutics of Time and Space in Modern and Postmodern Art from Cubism to Installation . Peter Lang Publishing, New York City 2009, ISBN 978-1-4331-0519-7 , pp. 188 ff.
  6. ↑ Irving Sandler : Nam June Paik's Boobtube Buddha . In: Klaus Bußmann, Florian Matzner (eds.): NJP Eine Data Base . Hatje Cantz, Munich 1993
  7. ^ Philip Kennicott: Smithsonian American Art Museum channels Nam June Paik . Article dated December 14, 2012 in the washingtonpost.com portal , accessed December 26, 2015
  8. ↑ Shigeko Kubota's Buddhas , website in the portal newmedia-art.org , accessed on December 14, 2015
  9. ↑ Nam June Paik , website in the artgallery.nsw.gov.au portal , accessed on December 13, 2015
  10. ↑ Nam June Paik: TV-Buddha for ducks , website in the portal skulptur-projekte.de , accessed on December 14, 2015
  11. ↑ Buddha for ducks , image in the portal lwl.org , accessed on December 14, 2015
  12. ↑ Buddha , website in the medienkunstnetz.de portal , accessed on December 14, 2015
  13. ↑ Buddha Duchamp Beuys , 1989, statue of a Buddha enthroned in a layer of large pebbles in front of a television set, shown in a Paik retrospective, Museum Kunstpalast , Düsseldorf 2010. In: A Culture of TV Buddhas , website in the portal bryanhiott.com , accessed on December 15, 2015
  14. ↑ Nam June Paik , website in the portal collection.stormking.org , accessed on December 15, 2015
  15. ↑ Avi Rosen: Time-Space Compression in Cyberspace Art , Essay, undated, p. 4 ( PDF ( Memento of December 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ))