In 2001, the artist Nam June Paik first discussed the establishment of the Nam June Paik Art Center with the Gyeongi-do Government. Later, the artist named the center himself as “The House Where the Spirit of Nam June Paik Lives On,”
and it opened in October 2008. The Nam June Paik Art Center has attempted to develop creative and critical research on his ideas and works of art to fulfill his wish of turning it into a place where his legacy and values abide.






Continuing Paik’s artistic legacy, the Nam June Paik Art Center aims to make exhibitions available to new discourses, breaking away from the modern notion of art and widening the possibilities of information and communication in a media age. Continuous research has been conducted on Paik’s creativity, which forms the basis for Paik exhibitions as well as others to expand his artistic view into the future.




The Nam June Paik Art Center houses 248 video installations as well as drawings by Paik and other contemporary artists. The Nam June Paik archives contain an additional 2,285 video works and other primary materials. The Nam June Paik Art Center collection forms the basis for critical research and curatorial practice.





The Nam June Paik Art Center is running a variety of programs under the education mission “School for the Paperless Society,” a development of the theory in Paik’s writing “Expanded Education for a Paperless Society” (1968), which emphasized that the way of education should be transformed into a new media world where paper will disappear. Particularly in 2017, Nam June Paik Art Center has thoroughly examined the role it should play as a public art museum and selected “public” and “interaction” as its educational keywords. To consider education not only as a means the role of delivering information, but also as a venue for interaction with others to make changes, it has provided a variety of educational programs for everyone to learn, thus working toward fulfilling the mission to provide art to the public.

• Programs for Students | The center offers educational programs where elementary, middle, and high school students as well as special education students can appreciate and experience creative art presented at exhibitions. Several other hands-on programs and lectures to help students to explore their future careers have been provided.
• Programs for Families with Children | The Nam June Paik Art Center provides a variety of hands-on programs that help families with children approach Paik’s art more easily.
• Programs for Young Adults : | The art center offers educational programs for young adults to experience art with the help of artists and art specialists.
• Programs for General Public and Art Specialists | A series of lecture programs, which will help deepen the understanding of the artist Nam June Paik and modern art, are offered to both the general public and art specialists.
• Training Programs for Volunteers | The center runs training programs for volunteers and applicants for volunteering work.
• Cultural Events | A variety of cultural events such as performances and hands-on programs are available.

• Special Exhibition, Our Bright Future—Cybernetic Fantasy | Our Bright Future—Cybernetic Fantasy explores contemporary technology and art from the perspective of the ‘Cybernetics’ of Nam June Paik who not only formed relationships between the technological environment and the human being but also presented a futuristic vision concerning them. Under the themes of “Robots, Interface and Posthumanism,” the exhibition warns against the Anthropocene epoch and demands a more multidimensional approach for for the birth of the new human. (July. 20 — Nov. 5, 2017)
• Nam June Paik Exhibition: Extraordinary Phenomenon, Nam June Paik | Extraordinary Phenomenon, Nam June Paik explores the artistic world of Nam June Paik from the perspective of “participation.” The exhibition illuminates Paik’s attempts to overcome traditional methods of creation and reception of music and visual art and to demonstrate art’s role in society. (July. 4, 2017 — Feb. 4, 2018)
• Special Exhibition, Imaginary Asia | This exhibition attempts to subjectively consider various historical experiences that Asia shares and to write a new history exploring the possibilities of moving images existing in the contemporary world. (Mar. 9, — July 2, 2017)
• Special Exhibition, New Gameplay | New Gameplay presents a variety of game art ranging from various works of art based on computer games to computer games developed by artists. (July. 20, 2016 — Feb. 19, 2017)

• Nam June Paik, TV Garden, 1974 (2002) | TV Garden, an artificially built natural environment with a television, representing technology in contrast to nature, creating an organic space. By presenting the video “Global Groove” on the television screen, Paik offers non-verbal communications through music and dance as media of global communications, providing a blueprint for a technological environment in which technology and nature coexist
• Nam June Paik, TV Buddha, 1974 (2002) | TV Buddha is comprised of a television, which screens a video of Buddha simultaneously filmed through closed circuit, and Buddha, who gazes upon himself screened on the television. Due to the closed circuit, a tense relationship between camera and monitor is formed, sending direct and simple yet strong messages.
• Nam June Paik, TV Fish (Video Fish), 1975 (1997) | An installation of twenty-four fishbowls in front of twenty-four uniformly-sized color monitors, TV Fish integrates the movement of the freely swimming fish and Merce Cunningham’s dance on the screens, creating a variety of examples of time and space before the visitors’ eyes.
• Nam June Paik, Elephant Cart, 1999–2001 | In Elephant Cart, Paik places as many communication devices as he can remember, including antique televisions, radios, telephones, phonographs and megaphones, on a large cart pulled by Buddha riding an elephant. As the elephant, which is connected to the cart by numerous cables, moves, the cart full of televisions and radios moves, as if information is spreading along the elephant’s path. Elephant Cart urges viewers to look back at the past in these rapidly changing times and calls into question how today’s communications are disseminated.

The Nam June Paik Library is a public art library located on the first floor of the Nam Jun Paik Art Center. The library’s holdings include approximately 4,000 monographs and exhibition catalogues, 1,000 periodical subscriptions, and over 850 audio video materials. The library collection covers Nam June Paik, media art, Fluxus, aesthetics, art in general, philosophy, and social science.





Awarding the Nam June Paik Art Center Prize to artists who inherit Nam June Paik’s creative and experimental spirit, the Nam Jun Paik Art Center generates an opportunities to support and highlight contemporary artists who can contribute to a better understanding of the significance and relevance of Paik’s art today. The prize was presented to Ahn Eun-Me, Lee Seung-tack, Ceal Floyer, Robert Adrian X (2009), Bruno Latour (2010), Doug Aitken (2012), Haroon Mirza (2014), and Blasts Theory (2016).




The Nam June Paik Art Center Archives comprise the Nam Jun Paik archival collections including primary materials regarding Nam Jun Paik and his artworks, Nam Jun Paik’s studio collections including paper materials and furniture from Paik’s studio in New York, and a video archive collection consisting of 2,285 analogue video tapes of Paik’s works and sources. Aiming at functioning as a foundation for conducting research on Paik, the archives support the Art Center’s curatorial practices as well as external research.