〈July 20, 1990 Nam June Paik: A Pas de loup de Seoul a Budapes〉, Nam June Paik: A Pas de loup de Seoul a Budapes, Seoul : Gallery Won, 1990, Gallery Won Collection. Nam June Paik Art Center Archives.
“We hate death so much that we look at it askance and step back. Confucius said, how we who do not know life could know death? But how could we know life without knowing death?”
— Nam June Paik, “Spirit-Media-Kut,” in Nam June Paik: A Pas De Loup – De Seoul à Budapest (1991), p. 50.
How Could We Know Life Without Knowing Death? is a ritual that takes place forty-nine days before the birthday of Nam June Paik, whose twentieth anniversary of passing is commemorated this year. It is also, perhaps, a reenactment delayed by thirty-six years: a return to July 20, 1990, when Paik performed a gut ritual in memory of Joseph Beuys.
On June 1, a nest is placed in a royal cherry tree standing right before the Nam June Paik Art Center. As times not yet arrived and times already passed are summoned into the present, different lives and deaths come to linger askance in the same place.
This ritual-performance continues toward the Birthday Gut for Nam June Paik, to be performed on July 20, 2026, the artist’s birthday.
How Could We Know Life Without Knowing Death