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Nam June Paik «Baroque Laser»
Nam June Paik, «Baroque Laser», 1995
Photograph: Roman Mensing/artdoc.de http://www.artdoc.de | © Nam June Paik


 Nam June Paik
«Baroque Laser»

Two years after the «Sistine Chapel» at the Venice Biennial, Nam June Paik chooses to decorate with electronic images the choir of a baroque church near Münster in Germany. In collaboration with Horst Baumann, he uses tautened gauze to experiment with laser as a new projection technique for video, and expands the installation by means of video projection onto the vaulted roof. The basic images come from Paik's 'Merce on Merce', his video homage to the dancer Merce Cunningham. The sculptural quality of laser projection, and its manoeuvrability via mirrors, enable an apparently free and kaleidoscopic orchestration of the space. The inclusion of a closed-circuit image of a candle, and 17th- and 18th-century flute music, transform the installation into a gesamtkunstwerk in the baroque sense, with architecture, painting, sculpture and music making up an ideal ensemble.

 

Rudolf Frieling