Anyone interested in this thread might head for Primera Generacion an
exhibition of video art from 1963-85 at the Reina Sofia Museum in
Madrid which celebrates the Museum's newly acquired video collection.
Both collection and exhibition were curated by Berta Sichel, Director
of the Audio
Hi Andreas,
Thanks for your comments about my interrogation of the Paik Portapak myth.
I've had a few people write to point out Paik's earlier work with modified
or prepared televisions, in Wuppertal in 1963, stating they believed his
distortion of television pictures with magnets was the
hi andreas and tom,
apart from tom's concrete questioning of the actual myth of origins
concerning video-art, i.e., the fact that there might be some practical
objections to it (objections which i share), there are also some problems
concerning the foundational character of that myth - that is:
dear tom,
thanks for the minute description of the history of video cameras and
their use by artists.
as far as i am concerned, the history of video art starts not with
the use of tape and camera, but with the manipulated TV sets that
Paik showed in 1963 at Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal
The Premature Birth of Video Art
by Tom Sherman
It is said that the late Nam June Paik was the George Washington of video
art. Paik, a Korean-born artist, educated in Japan and Germany, is given
credit for recording and exhibiting the very first work of video art in
New York, NY, in 1965. As
So the myth of Paik's first work of video art appears to pre-date its own
possibility. While Paik undoubtedly was a pioneer user of portable video
equipment, he probably shared the original moments of video art with other
artists, including Frank Gillette, Ira Schneider, Les Levine, and Juan
