Maybe because I still type on her iphone with one finger, I’m not a fan of video art.  But I am a fan of poetry, humor, brilliant insight, stillness, quiet and such so I Loved TV Buddha by the “Father of Video Art” Nam June Paik.

To stay au current for herself and art tour clients, I went reluctantly to SFMOMA’s huge retrospective of the Korean born, musically trained, internationally active artist’s works.  My assumption was that the entire show would be alien and incomprehensible to me.  But luckily TV Buddha was the very first work in the very first room, and I was pulled right in to Paik’s timeless orbit. 

The yogini in me immediately thought of the present day ‘popness’ of the ancient discipline of yoga. But that was just one – of many – associations the work conjured. Surveilence, selfies, the complex presence of technology in human society, religion, history, future.  All those associations and more seemed to me to be present in the work.  It is on public display but so private personal in its reception by each individual viewer past, present and beyond.