Editing Nam June Paik (section)

==Career==
In 1961, Paik returned to Tokyo to explore the country's advanced technologies.<ref name="Nam June Paik-2019">{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1090281587 |title=Nam June Paik |date=2019 |others=Sook-Kyung Lee, Rudolf Frieling, Tate Modern |isbn=978-1-84976-635-7 |location=London |oclc=1090281587}}</ref>{{Rp|page=14}} While living in Japan between 1962 and 1963, Paik first acquired a [[Portapak|Sony Portapak]], the first commercially available video recorder, perhaps by virtue of his close friendship with [[Nobuyuki Idei]], who was an executive at (and later president of) the [[Sony]] corporation.<ref name="Hanhardt-2012" />{{Rp|pages=19–20}}

From 1962, Paik was a member of the experimental art movement [[Fluxus]].<ref>{{cite book|author=[[Christiane Paul (curator)|Christiane Paul]]|title=Digital Art|publisher=[[Thames & Hudson]]|location=London|pages=14–15}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Petra Stegmann|title=The lunatics are on the loose – EUROPEAN FLUXUS FESTIVALS 1962–1977|publisher=DOWN WITH ART!|location=Potsdam|year=2012|isbn=978-3-9815579-0-9}}.</ref>

In 1964, Paik immigrated to the United States of America and began living in New York City, where he began working with classical cellist [[Charlotte Moorman]], to combine his video, music, and [[Performance art|performance]].<ref name="Hanhardt-2012" />{{Rp|page=20}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.veniceperformanceart.org/index.php?page=327&lang|title=Charlotte Moorman & Nam June Paik|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180420203021/http://www.veniceperformanceart.org/index.php?page=327&lang|archive-date=April 20, 2018|work=Venice International Performance Art Week}}</ref>
From 1979 to 1996 Paik was professor at the [[Kunstakademie Düsseldorf]].{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}

After nearly 35 years of being exiled from his motherland of Korea,<ref name="Hanhardt-2012" />{{Rp|page=43}} Paik returned to South Korea on June 22, 1984.<ref name="Lee-2021" />{{Rp|page=152}} From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, Paik played an integral role in Korea's art scene. As the curator Lee Sooyon has argued, Paik became more than just an illustrious visitor to Korea, he became the leader who helped open Korea's art scene to the broader international art world.<ref name="Lee-2021" />{{Rp|page=154}}

He opened solo exhibitions in Korea and mounted two world-wide broadcast projects for the 1986 Asia Games and the 1988 Olympics, both hosted in [[Seoul]], and organized a number of exhibitions in Korea. Some exhibitions coordinated by Paik introduced John Cage, [[Merce Cunningham]], and Joseph Beuys to Korea's art scene; others brought recent developments in video art and interactivity from Europe and the U.S. to Korea, in ways that bridged similar activities in Korea's art scene.<ref name="Lee-2021" />{{Rp|page=154}} Paik was also involved in bringing the 1993 [[Whitney Biennial]] to Seoul, as well as in founding the [[Gwangju Biennale]] and establishing the [[Korean pavilion|Korea Pavilion]] at the [[Venice Biennale]].

Beginning with his artistic career in Germany in the 1960s—and on through his immigration to the U.S., later involvement in South Korea's art scene, and broader participation in international artistic currents—Paik's transnational path informed both his identity and his artistic practice in complex ways.<ref name="Hanhardt-2012" />{{Rp|page=48}} At the outset of his career in Europe, Paik declared, "The [[yellow peril]]! C'est moi," in a 1964 pamphlet, a reference to his Asian identity that, as the curators June Yap and Lee Soo-yon have noted, appropriates a xenophobic phrase coined by Kaiser Wilhelm II as Paik referenced his Asian identity.<ref name="Lee-2021">{{Cite journal |last=Lee |first=Sooyon |date=2021 |title=Paik Nam June Effect |journal=MMCA Studies |publisher=National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea |publication-place=Seoul, South Korea |issue=13 |issn=2093-0712}}</ref>{{Rp|page=158}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Yap |first=June |date=August 28, 2022 |title=Nam June Paik in Asia |url=https://explore.namjunepaik.sg/essays-interviews/nam-june-paik-in-asia |access-date=August 28, 2022 |website=Nam June Paik: The Future Is Now |archive-date=August 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220828172359/https://explore.namjunepaik.sg/essays-interviews/nam-june-paik-in-asia/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Curator John Hanhardt observed that certain works recall Paik's lived experience of transnational immigration from South Korea to Japan, Germany, and on the U.S.; one example is ''Guadalcanal Requiem'' (1977), which invokes "the history and memories of World War II in the Pacific."<ref name="Hanhardt-2012" />{{Rp|page=43}} Hanhardt has also concluded that—though "no single story" of Nam June Paik can capture the complexity of who he was and the places that shaped him—as Paik grew in public, transcultural, and global recognition, he held onto the significance of his birthplace in Korea.<ref name="Hanhardt-2012" />{{Rp|page=48}} Similarly, the curator Lee Sook-kyung has called identifying what is Korea, Japanese, American, or German about Nam June Paik to be a "futile" effort,<ref name="Nam June Paik-2019" />{{Rp|page=9}} yet she has observed that Paik consistently emphasized his Korean heritage and "Mongolian" lineages.<ref name="Nam June Paik-2019" />{{Rp|page=135}}