June Yap Tells Why And How His Pioneering Spirit Remains 100 Per Cent Relevant

From dec 10 to next march, the National Gallery Singapore will stage its latest blockbuster show: Nam June Paik: the future is now – the last stop of a travelling exhibition that also marks the late South Korean artist’s first major retrospective in the region. The man was one of the art world’s earliest global superstars and is often considered the father of video art (tiktokers, eat your hearts out). Exhibition curator June Yap tells Keng Yang Shuen why and how his pioneering spirit remains 100 per cent relevant.

- Keng Yang Shuen

ON WHY NAM JUNE PAIK WAS SUCH A VISIONARY

“It was Paik who coined the phrase ‘electronic superhighway’ in the ’70s – how visionary he was to have predicted the future of communication and the (as yet unborn) Internet just from what he was encountering then. He had already recognised the potential of the media in bridging people and transforming the way they would communicate. You could say that we are living in the very future he imagined – one in which we coexist seamlessly with and depend on technology. At the same time – by virtue of how he was also critical and concerned about technology’s impact – his works are even more relevant to audiences now, as they compel us to reflect on our own relationship with technology and its effects on society.”

ON HOW HE CHANGED THE FIELD OF VIDEO ART