The year 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation. In commemoration, Nam June Paik Art Center, in collaboration with the Korean Cultural Center New York and the Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-Koo Foundation, presents Nam June Paik: The Communicator. The exhibition, which views Nam June Paik as an artist of communication who sought exchange and resonance, creates a space for participation and dialogue in New York, the city that served as one of his principal stages.

His iconic works, such as TV Cello and robot sculptures, fused electronic media with traditional forms, creating a wholly new visual language. By transforming television sets into instruments or human-like figures, Paik playfully dismantled the boundaries between machine and human, art and everyday life, performance and play. His robots, built from stacked televisions, symbolized his belief that technology could extend human existence and inspire new ways of imagining the world. These works continue to ask us: What is communication?

The exhibition also highlights his enduring commitment to younger generations and to intergenerational dialogue in art. On the first floor, Paik’s Rehabilitation of Genghis Khan (1993) is presented alongside The Car Toward the Future (2025) by emerging media artist Areum Kim, a work that carries forward Paik’s vision of technology intertwined with humanity, love, and coexistence. This juxtaposition demonstrates how his artistic spirit continues to thrive today—through evolving technologies and new creative voices—while opening pathways toward the future.

Areum Kim 

As a media and visual artist, Areum Kim explores technology, memory, and the possibilities of coexistence between human and non-human beings. Kim often draws from everyday media and digital culture, reimagining them as poetic narratives of connection, love, and shared futures. For this exhibition, Kim presents The Car Toward the Future (2025), a multimedia work inspired by Nam June Paik’s Rehabilitation of Genghis Khan. In her piece, the car becomes a symbolic vessel journeying across past, present, and future, navigating a sea of undersea cables that represent the global internet. Guided by themes of love and coexistence, the work imagines technology not as an end in itself but as a pathway toward a more compassionate and interconnected world. She was awarded the Grand Prize at ONSO ARTIST OPEN CALL 2025, organized by Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-Koo Foundation.