‘Gift of Nam June Paik’ is an international symposium series that has been consistently held since the opening of the NJP Art Center in 2008, making it a prominent academic brand. ‘Gift of Nam June Paik 15’ is jointly organized and hosted by NJP Art Center and Leeum Museum of Art, both of which hold representative outdoor installation artworks by Nam June Paik.

This symposium will focus on the collection, exhibition, documentation, and conservation of outdoor media installation held by museums, with a focus on the exhibition, Transmission, presented by Nam June Paik Art Center. Museum professionals - curator, conservator, technician, archivist – and artists will engage in theoretical and practical discussions on these topics using Nam June Paik’s outdoor media artworks, Transmission Towerand 32 Cars for the 20th Century: Play Mozart’s Requiem Quietly. The symposium will provide insights into the production and installation process of these two artworks, with direct presentations from experts who collaborated with Paik, namely Norman Ballard and Mark Patsfall.

Discussions cover a wide range of topics, including the variability of media installations, the relationship between the artwork and its exhibition space, the documentation properties required during the collection process, and debates about the origin of the artwork for conservation. Additionally, as part of the symposium program, tours of two artworks on display will be offered. The symposium consists of presentations and discussions by a total of ten professionals.

This symposium, which focuses on the variability and the origin of media installation works from the perspective of museum collection, is expected to raise questions about a new research perspective on media art collection and preservation, which is distinct from previous discussions that primarily focused on the mechanical attributes of media art.

PANELS

Norman Ballard

Norman Ballard is a laser artist and technician based in New York. He constructed his first laser graphics projection system while studying at the Media Ecology graduate research program at NYU in 1975 and founded Rarefied Media in 1976, which he continues to operate. He has applied laser technology to performance and visual arts using programs that control laser movements. He has been responsible for various stage technology projects for the New York City Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera to this day. Since 1982, he has collaborated with Nam June Paik, fabricating numerous laser works, including Three Elements (1999), Jacob's Ladder (2000), Sweet and Sublime (2000), and Transmission Tower (2002). In 2002, he oversaw the installation of Transmission at Rockefeller Center Plaza in New York, which featured Transmission Tower and 32 Cars for the 20th Century simultaneously. Ballard is now dedicated to restoring and preserving these extraordinary artworks for the future generations.

Zeeyoung Chin

Zeeyoung Chin is a conservator at Leeum Museum of Art. She earned master’s degree from Conservation and Restoration of Painted Works of Art, Ecole Supérieure d'Art d'Avignon. Chin researches on conservation and restoration of museum collections in field of contemporary art. Major research papers that she published are: The Conservation of an Outdoor Bronze Sculpture : Louise Bourgeois' Maman(2008), Documentation and Preservation of Media Art(2011), Conservation of Nam June Paik’s 32 Cars for the 20th Century: Play Mozart’s Requiem Quietly(2014), Technique and Damage Types of Yoo Young Kuk's Oil Paintings(2016), Conservation and Maintenance of Modern Outdoor Metal Sculptures(2021), 23-XII-71#218 and the Development of Kim Whanki's Dot Paintings (2021). Since 2020, she has worked as a member of Steering Committee of the International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art (INCCA).

Yoonseo Kim

Yoonseo Kim is a curator of Nam June Paik Art Center workingin the field of museology and contemporary art. Her research interestslie in the social role of museums, digital museum practice, and the possibilities for connecting the curatorial and the cultural policy. Her curatorial works includethe exhibitions The Consultant: Paik’s papers 1968-1979(2022), Open Codes: Networked Commons(2021), The Future of Silence: When your tongue vanishes(2020), and symposium series include Living in the Postdigital, Reliving the Museum(2020) with exhibition catalogues and academic journal publication.

Hwanju Kim

Hwanju Kim studied cultural heritage restoration and conservation at the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage. He has worked at Conservation Department of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, specializing in oil painting conservation. Currently Kim works as a conservator at the Daejeon Museum of Art. He managed Open Storage Project at the Daejeon Museum of Art and Nam June Paik’s Fractal Turtle Shiprestoration project. He published research papers including Analysis on the current status of conservation evaluation of Korean national and public art museums within the acquisition procedure of museum collection(2022), Research on Daejeon Museum of Art Collection’s conservation practice and policy(2021), Restoration Project on Nam June Paik’s Fractal Turtle Ship(2020), and Research on installation and restoration of Tom Shannon’s Ball Ray(2019). Kim is interested in the conservation of contemporary art, conservation policies, and the integrated museum collection management.

Kijun Lee

Kijun Lee is a media art technician at Nam June Paik Art Center. Lee has collaborated with various art museums and galleries, specializing in Nam June Paik’s works. He engaged in installation of Paik’s artworks in exhibitions including Nam June Paik Video Rhapsody(2007), Nam June Paik Special Exhibition in the event of Gyeongju Cultural Expo(2007). He managed in installing Paik’s works at NJP Art Center for years. With Jung Sung Lee, a master technician who had long been working with Paik, he participated in restoration project regarding Megatron (1997) and Seoul Rhapsody (2001). He is interested in media art preservation, Nam June Paik’s works preservation, and collection management.

Pip Laurenson

Pip Laurenson is the professor of Conservation at UCL and director of the MSc in the Conservation of Contemporary Art and Media at UCL East that opened in September 2023. Pip has 30 years of experience in the conservation of contemporary art, establishing and leading Tate’s pioneering Time-based Media Conservation section from 1996 until 2010. Between 2010 and 2022 Pip was Head of Collection Care Research, working to develop, lead and support research related to the conservation and management of Tate's collections. In January 2016 Pip took up a special chair as Professor of Art Collection and Care at Maastricht University. Pip is committed to interdisciplinary research that serves and responds to the art of our time and the major challenges facing the conservation of contemporary collections in the 21st Century. She has secured awards for research from a range of funders including private foundations, the European Union framework programme and the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and from 2018-2022 she led the Mellon Foundation Initiative Reshaping the Collectible: When Artworks Live in the Museum. She received her doctorate from University College London, is an accredited member of the Institute for Conservation and is a member of the Steering Committee of the International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art (INCCA).

Sang Ae Park

Sang Ae Park a researcher and archivist at Nam June Paik Art Center. Her area of practice are art museum archives, media art archives, and Nam June Paik. Among her recent projects are management of NJP Art Center archives comprising primary materials including videos, research monograph publication, and among others. In 2022, Park has launched Paik’s Video Study, a free web streaming platform of Paik’s video archives. She obtained her Ph.D. from Yonsei University, Seoul, for her dissertation A Study on Factors in Type-Specific Use of Video as an Information Source. She co-curated Extraordinary Phenomenon, Nam June Paik(2017), Humor Has It(2021), and Transmission(2023). She has edited research monographs including Paik-Abe Video Synthesizer(2011), Nam June Paik Art Center Interviews(2012-2020), and Paik-Abe Correspondence(2018). Park is interested in media art archive, single-artist museum archive, digital museum practice as well as Nam June Paik.

Mark Patsfall

Mark Patsfall is an artist, printmaker, and publisher. He received his MFA from the University of Cincinnati in 1979. He founded what is now Clay Street Press in 1981. Working with Carl Solway Gallery (1983 – 2003) he was chief designer and technician for video artist Nam June Paik creating sculptures and public projects. In 2002 he was awarded an artist residency in Prague, Czech Republic by the Ohio Arts Council and Jelini Foundation. In 2011 he executed a video sculpture commission for the American Broadcast Museum in Chicago. He is a former Adjunct professor of art at the University of Cincinnati and was an executive member of the Board of Directors of the Art Academy of Cincinnati from 2011-2020. His work has been exhibited locally, nationally and abroad and is in many public and private collections.

Hyunsun Tae

Hyunsun Tae, formerly a chief curator at Leeum Museum of Art, currently serves as the Head of Collections overseeing collection acquisition, research, and exhibition. Tae obtained her master’s degree in Art History from Ewha Womans University and completed her doctoral studies. She has curated permanent and special exhibitions of contemporary art at Leeum Museum of Art, and organized solo exhibitions of various domestic and international artists with focus on artist research. Some of the notable exhibitions she has curated include Kim Sooja: a Needle Woman(2000), Nara Yoshitomo: From the Depth of My Drawer(2005), Michael Joo Solo Exhibition(2006), My Beautiful Days(2007), Anish Kapoor(2012), Yang Hae-gue Solo Exhibition(2015), and A dot a Sky_Kim Hwanki(2023). She is currently researching ways to construct and utlize collection archives for Korean modern and contemporary art collections at Leeum Museum of Art.

Jeho Yun

Jeho Yun is an audio visual artist and electronic music composer whose activities extendbeyond the boundaries of exhibitions and performances. He designs digital spaces using computers and fills physical spaces with the sound and light of optical devices based on his imagination. Audiences experiencing his works sensually perceive light and sound as they walk through and rest within the artwork, leading them to contemplate their own identity in a contemporary era where reality and the virtual world coexist. His works have been featured in major exhibitions such as Paradise Art Lab Festival, Open Media Art Festival, Gwangju Media Art Festival, Jeju Museum of Art, Suwon Museum of Art, and more. He has also been involved in various collaborations, including the Korea-Canada 60th Anniversary Exhibition, the Jikji Korea International Festival’s opening performance, The Hyundai’s First Anniversary performance, and the Genesis X Roadshow, among others.