And Nam June Paik made a garden of TV

Question: Is the consolation, it could always be worse a better consolation than, it’s sure to get better.

Answer: It always could be worse is a better consolation.

Hobbling thru the Nam June Paik show at SFMOMA yesterday, having sustained something I’ve identified as a golf injury involving my right knee and shin, possibly something called sciatica, a word which feels as bad as it sounds, I couldn’t help but be cheered up by the sheer energy of Paik’s work, work that could either be called technology that became art or art that became technology. Paik must have been incredibly ambitious to make as much art as he made, some of it good, much of it a bit worse than good, some of it not good at all. If sheer energy i.e. making as much stuff as one possibly can during a lifetime, is the gold standard for an art career, Nam June is a world-class Olympic artist, the first artist I know of to be seen on his own Television.

Somewhere on the wall in one of the galleries showing Nam June Paik’s work there’s one of those wall plaques where the curator’s posted one of those pre-fabricated explanatory texts to give context to what Paik was up to during his long career: a quote from Paik includes his statement that he’d hoped to make art, 95% new, an attitude so charming that it becomes a consolation to me. Even though my knee hurt these words of Nam June Paik put a big smile on my face.

And Nam June Paik’s’ TV Garden (1974) especially made my knee feel much better.

If Nam June Paik were still alive I’d suggest he be renamed, And Nam June Paik.

TV Garden, artwork by And Nam June Paik, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, July 8, 2021.