Nam June Paik - 20th c. and Contemporary Art Day Sale - Morning Session New York Tuesday, December 8, 2020 | Phillips

20th c. and Contemporary Art Day Sale - Morning...

New York 8 December 2020

  • "As you look down rows of [TV Chairs]...you wonder if Paik is really saying “Television is not life"– or only offering traditionalists a diplomatic way out. The irony that allows Pop art to be read as a celebration or a castigation of consumerism, or both, operates effectively for Paik. By playing TV overload to the hilt, he creates a visual orgy that can be perceived as a saturated essence of electronic art or a stinging criticism on the vulgarity of life with the tube." —Suzanne Muchnic, LATimes, 1988

    • Provenance

      Carl Solway Gallery, Cincinnati
      Private Collection, Germany
      Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 1995

    • Exhibited

      London, Hayward Gallery, Nam June Paik, Video Works 1963 – 88, September 29 - December 11, 1988, no. 20, p. 39
      New York, James Cohan Gallery, Nam June Paik, Music is Not Sound, September 11 – October 20, 2019

    • Literature

      Klaus Bussmann and Florian Matzner, eds., NAM JUNE PAIK, eine DATAbase, exh. cat., German Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 1993, p. 97 (illustrated, p. 98)

159

Nam June Paik

Music is Not Sound

signed and dated "88 PAIK" on the right TV monitor
single-channel video system, acrylic on 2 TV-chairs with 9" color monitors, 2 cymbals, mallet, 2 found bust sculptures and 2 plastic telephones
46 x 72 x 41 in. (116.8 x 182.9 x 104.1 cm)
Executed in 1988, this work is from a series of 6 unique variants.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$100,000 - 150,000 

Contact Specialist

John McCord
Head of Day Sale, Morning Session
New York
+1 212 940 1261

jmccord@phillips.com

20th c. and Contemporary Art Day Sale - Morning Session

New York 8 December 2020