| [ fineArt ] in KIDS 글 쓴 이(By): Convex (4ever 0~) 날 짜 (Date): 2002년 7월 11일 목요일 오후 08시 34분 59초 제 목(Title): nyt에 실린 백남준 기사 The Grandfather of Video Art, Still a Bit Naughty By JOYCE WADLER HE Korean-born video artist Nam June Paik never spoke English very well. It was fragmentary, with a heavy accent, and the stroke Mr. Paik suffered six years ago has made him even more difficult to understand. His left side is immobile; he requires a wheelchair and a nurse. Still, Mr. Paik insists, there has been an upside. "My career picked up," he says, his face motionless, his voice indistinct, yet somehow able to radiate happy mischief. "People thought I would die. I was negotiating with the Guggenheim. I don't hear from them for years. After the stroke, they quickly came." "Holly Solomon went to talk to them," says Mr. Paik's middle-age nephew, Ken Paik Hakuta, a toy inventor who has lately been his uncle's manager. "She's gone, but we miss her," adds Mr. Paik's wife, the artist Shigeko Kubota, about Ms. Solomon, the art dealer who died last month. So it goes for Nam June Paik. In the 60's, he was part of the Fluxus movement, the merry pranksters of the art world. Now, at 70, he is the grandfather of video art. His latest installation, organized by the Public Art Fund and displayed at Rockefeller Center, is "32 Cars for the 20th Century: Play Mozart's Requiem Quietly." What does it mean? "Childhood memory," he says. "At the end of World War II, my family has seven cars. They keep breaking down. We have two men full time working on the cars. Monday, one car. Tuesday, one car. We didn't have any gasoline. We use charcoal. Like Hibachi." He laughs. "We had 1935 charcoal limousine." Why have the cars been painted silver? His agent did it without consulting him, Mr. Paik says. "Nouveau riche. He has no taste." Mr. Paik's family had been very rich. They relocated to Japan when Mr. Paik was 17. Mr. Paik wished to be a pianist. His father, whom he calls a despot, forbade it. Mr. Paik studied music in Cologne, Germany, anyway. A first piece, "Homage to John Cage," involved toppling his piano, clipping Mr. Cage's tie and flinging eggs at the wall. Later, he went back to Japan, living in Mr. Hakuta's home. His reputation preceded him. "They said there was a man who ate a piano," Ms. Kubota says in Japanese-accented English. "I thought how did he do? Was he crazy? He threw down the piano, then he threw the eggs. I had to know this person." "By the way," Mr. Hakuta interjects, "that was my family's piano." So Mr. Paik and Ms. Kubota met at this time? "No," Ms. Kubota says. "He was home, making a robot." How did Mr. Paik's family take the smashed piano? "What can they do?" Mr. Paik says, with artistic indifference. "Too late." Let's see, dominant father who cuts him off, then smashing the family piano ?can Mr. Paik analyze his behavior? "I was a radical Marxist, I couldn't do what I wanted to politically, so it was like representative of a political act." Mr. Paik came to New York in 1964, as did Ms. Kubota. She is no avant-garde slacker, as her Vagina Paintings establish, yet it was 10 years before they married. "He has many groupies, but I follow him a long time," Ms. Kubota says. "Yoko Ono followed him also. Her book, `Grapefruit,' she dedicated to Nam June Paik." She giggles. "The second time, she put in John Lennon." In New York, Mr. Paik worked often with the cellist Charlotte Moorman, who often played topless. He also designed a "video bra" of two small television sets for her. Was there a love affair? "One night in Germany," Mr. Paik says. "In a car. Parked." Mr. Paik now plans a parade-size balloon of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Hakuta produces an illustration: The senator's smiling face superimposed on Botticelli's rosy "Venus." "I will hang on Park Avenue tree," Mr. Paik says. "I like Hillary. She is fun." "You met her in the White House," Mr. Hakuta says. "She is a certain kind of fantasy, she's still young, kind of pretty," Mr. Paik says, ruminating. He thinks he could display a naked senator? "Yeah, why not?" Mr. Paik says. "Freedom of speech. Cost me $90,000 to make." "We went to Long Island and found a company," Ms. Kubota says, "But we didn't have the money, so we postponed it." THE talk turns to Mr. Paik's income. Mr. Hakuta says he cannot discuss it. Mr. Paik tells him to tell everything. Ms. Kubota says something in Japanese that Mr. Hakuta later translates as, "Don't tell her a thing." The nurse helps Mr. Paik stretch. Mr. Hakuta is dispatched by Ms. Kubota to save a large table at a nearby restaurant for lunch. En route, he returns to the topic of Charlotte Moorman. "One night in a car in Germany, come on," Mr. Hakuta says. "He wouldn't say anything because his wife was in the room. Charlotte's were the first breasts I ever saw in my life. I was 16. Those little TV sets she wore on her breasts? When they were doing performances, it was my job to put them on." He starts laughing. "When my uncle found out, he was screaming. Here's this guy, he's doing all these outrageous things with his life, but he was such a prude." 관련기사.... 백남준씨, NYT와 회견서‘감춰진 모습’공개 양성욱/feelgood@munhwa.co.kr 미국 뉴욕타임스(NYT)가 비디오아티스트 백남준(70)씨의 ‘인간적인 모습’을 재미있게 그린 기사를 실어 관심을 끌고 있다. NYT는 10일 고정란인 ‘공인들의 삶(Public Lives)’코너를 통해 백남준씨를 다소 장난기 어린 짓궂은 인물로 묘사했으며 아직도 영어에는 서툰 것 같다고 소개했다. 다음은 간추린 인터뷰 내용. ―건강은 어떤지. “6년전 중풍을 맞을 당시 구겐하임 미술관과 협상을 하고 있었는데, 미술관측에서 한동안 연락이 없더군. 하지만 내가 중풍맞았다는 소식듣더니 잽싸게 달려오더만….” ―요즘 록펠러센터에서 ‘20세기를 위한 32대의 자동차’라는 작품을 전시하고 있는데 왜 차들을 모두 은색으로 칠했나. “내 에이전트가 나하고 한마디 상의없이 멋대로 그래놨어. 그 친구 무슨 감각이 없어.” ―일본에서 살 때 작품 만든다고 피아노도 때려 부쉈다고 하던데 가족들의 그때 반응은 어땠나. “어떡하겠어. 그땐 이미 늦었는데….” ―그 때 자신에 대한 분석을 스스로 해 본다면. “당시 난 급진 마르크스주의자였어. 정치적으로 내가 원하는 건 내가 할 수 없었고…. 그러니까 그건 내 정치적 행동을 대신하는 거였어.” ―자주 가슴을 내놓은 채로 연주를 하는 여성 첼로 연주자 샬롯 무어만과 애정행각 같은 건 없었나. “독일에서 한 번 있었지. 주차된 차 안에서…. (백남준씨는 이 부분은 부인에게 말하지 말라고 통역에게 부탁)” ―힐러리 클린턴 뉴욕주 상원의원과 관련된 작품을 구상하고 있다는데. “난 힐러리를 좋아해. 보티첼리의 ‘비너스의 탄생’그림에 힐러리의 웃는 얼굴을 덧붙인 모습을 대형풍선에 붙여넣어 파크 애비뉴 나무 위에 달아놓으려고 해.” ―발가벗은 상원의원을 전시할 수 있다고 생각하나. “왜 못해. 표현의 자유가 있는데…. 만드는데 9만 달러 정도 들어.” /양성욱기자 feelgood@munhwa.co.kr --,--`-<@ 매일 그대와 아침햇살 받으며 매일 그대와 눈을 뜨고파.. 잠이 들고파.. Till the rivers flow up stream | Love is real \|||/ @@@ Till lovers cease to dream | Love is touch @|~j~|@ @^j^@ Till then, I'm yours, be mine | Love is free | ~ | @@ ~ @@ |