GLOBAL GROOVE 2004: Nam June Paik's Electronic Stage
For the production of Global Groove 2004 in the
Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, a team of New York curators and restorers
proved necessary. John Hanhardt and Caitlin Jones from the Film and Media
Department at the Guggenheim Museum on electronic catalogues, the
alterations video art undergoes when presented on modern-day equipment,
and the internet as a utopian exchange market.
John Hanhardt and Caitlin Jones
As
Global Groove 2004 was about to open in Berlin, I met with
John Hanhardt, Senior Curator of Film and Media at the
Guggenheim Museum and
Caitlin Jones, Projects Research Assistant and Exhibition Coordinator for
Nam June Paik's Global Groove 2004 in their New York offices in
SoHo to talk with them about this latest Nam June Paik book and exhibition
at Deutsche
Guggenheim. The catalogue for Global Groove 2004 was designed
by the New York studio of 2 x 4, Inc., known for their innovative book
designs for
Maya Lin and
Philip Johnson as well as identity systems for New York's Second Stage
Theater. Soon after my interview John Hanhardt and Caitlin Jones left for
Berlin.
CHERYL KAPLAN: Mr. Hanhardt, you were the curator of
The Worlds of Nam June Paik at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The
exhibition was the first American retrospective of the Korean-born
multi-media artist's work since 1982. What was the translation process
like between Global Groove 2004 at the Deutsche Guggenheim and
Paik's retrospective from 2000?
JOHN HANHARDT: The
retrospective was organized in 2000, but the work began years earlier
through conversations with the Guggenheim director
Tom Krens that began with my appointment in 1996 as Senior Curator of Film
and Media Arts. I was asked to develop the project, working with Nam June
to create a retrospective focusing on his importance to art in the late
20th century and his new work. That exhibition went to Korea and to the
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. The commission for Berlin began about two years
ago. Krens was originally interested in working with the video wall at the
Samsung Center for New Media at the
Guggenheim Museum SoHo and offered Paik a commission to create a work that
would be presented at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin.
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Paik developed a concept to celebrate his single-channel
video work. Global Groove 2004 is the 30-year celebration from
1973, when the original Global Groove was broadcast, celebrating Paik's
singular contribution to video and television.
Proof: pages for the catalogue "Global Groove 2004". Photo: Cheryl Kaplan
CK: How does the catalogue and the making of the
catalogue for Global Groove 2004 differ from the catalogue for
The Worlds of Nam June Paik?
JH: The Worlds of Nam
June Paik catalogue represents the historical narrative and scope of
Paik's career, in sculpture, installation, performance, and his
involvement with Fluxus, and places
his work within a broad context. I worked with my colleague
Jon Ippolito. Now, I'm working with Caitlin Jones, who's been instrumental
in developing this commission. The catalogue has an essay by myself, based
on earlier writing about Paik's single-channel video tapes and work for
television, and an essay by Caitlin looking at a new generation of work
inspired by Nam June; it also contains a short analysis done by Anja
Osswald, a German scholar of Global Groove, and Nam June Paik, as well as
a reprint of a 1974 Everson Museum
catalogue which contains some of the early writing by Paik. We capture
both the contemporary view and Paik's early writings on video and
television from the Everson catalogue.
CAITLIN JONES: It was
John's idea to include the Everson Museum catalogue because of its
contemporary relevance. Some of the issues raised in the 1974 writings are
issues of copyright,
media experimentation and manipulation of hardware. These issues are still
at the forefront and highlight how prescient Nam June was. It's an amazing
context to show the 2004 Version of Global Groove and these
writings together. Young artists often cite Nam June as a major influence
in the way he dealt with hardware as a sculptural object and his
playfulness with the medium.
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