SwissArtGallery · Documented identity
Associated with video art, American artist Nam June Paik (1932–2006) approaches electronic media from a background in music and through experiments in which sound, image and technical devices come together. At the University of Tokyo, he studies aesthetics and music, then graduates in 1956 with a thesis on Arnold Schönberg. He continues his training in Germany with the composers Thrasybulus Georgiades in Munich, followed by Wolfgang Fortner in Freiburg. His meeting with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Darmstadt in 1958 is followed by work with Stockhausen and Luigi Nono at the electronic music studio of Radio Cologne.
In the early 1960s, Paik takes part in the first Fluxus events. He makes Zen for Film between 1962 and 1964; the work is presented at Fluxhall and described as an archetype of Fluxus film. In March 1963, at Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, he presents Exposition of Music – Electronic Television, his first major solo exhibition according to the source. Installed in the rooms of a villa, it brings together prepared pianos, modified record players and tape recorders, sound installations, and television sets with electronically distorted images. The same period sees a radical reduction of the image in Zen for TV (1963), where the screen shows only a vertical line of light.
In New York, from the mid-1960s onwards, he develops a lasting collaboration with cellist Charlotte Moorman. TV Bra for Living Sculpture (1969) gives form to this collaboration: Moorman wears two small screens housed in Plexiglas cases. In 1973, Paik makes the videotape Global Groove with engineer and filmmaker John Godfrey; it is described as a synthesis of his research into editing and electronic manipulation.
This profile brings together identity references for Nam June Paik and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.
7 references are documented at Germann, Sotheby’s, Lempertz, Piguet. Each record links to its source; the amounts are not a general valuation of the artist’s work.
crayon de graphite sur papier
"BA/MA 6 Today’s Mood"
crayon de graphite sur papier
Catalogue period : 2024-11-28 — 2024-12-11
Published result : 950 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 800–1200
View the lot at the auction house ↗Nam June Paik 1932-2006 Untitled inscribed for Keller and signed Paik (lower right) acrylic on canvas and screens 65,5 x 45,5 cm (both canvas); 73,5 x 52,5 x 10,5 cm (framed) Executed in 1982.
Catalogue period : 2023-06-02 — 2023-06-09
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
Estimate : 20000 – 30000 CHF
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Oil on canvas
Ohne Titel
Öl auf Leinwand
Auction date : 2021-06-18
Published result : 23750 EUR
Including buyer’s premium
Estimate : 8000
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Pencil drawing
Happy, 1978
Bleistift-Zeichnung.
Date to be documented
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
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Bleistift und Ölkreide auf Papier.
Date to be documented
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
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Collage, Tusche, Blei- und Farbstift auf Papier.
Date to be documented
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
View the lot at the auction house ↗These references are shown separately because of their attribution or lot composition. Each record states the reason.
Je Bleistift und schwarzer Farbstift auf Papier.
2 Zeichnungen: Untitled
Je Bleistift und schwarzer Farbstift auf Papier.
Lot groupé — prix global
Date to be documented
Group lot — total price
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
View the lot at the auction house ↗SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record.
Documentation updated : 2026-10-19
