Before taking this course, I never heard of Nam June Paik, since I never paid much attention to modern art. Actually, I don't think I've ever paid any attention to modern art. And going to check out Nam June Paik's exhibit "Becoming Robot" at the Asia Society in New York, I remember why. I won't go as far to claim that the work I saw was pretentious; but I honestly wasn't able to grasp the idea of the exhibit in its entirety. The work he put on some old fashion technology was certainly unique, but it's not much I could commend.
I personally felt that it lacked any elegance or personality. There's this lack of the 'wow' factor of the spectacle in art recently, it seems. In the old days, we would have Greek sculptures or beautiful paintings by Van Gogh and Monet. But today in art, or rather modern art, it's all 'ironic' kinds of pieces that 'tackle' society; that don't really tackle society. And if it does, than it does it so ambiguously that it could mean anything else.
However I'm not discrediting Nam June Paik's work. Since I'm not active in the 'art' world, I probably just don't have the ability of dissecting the meanings behind his artwork. But it was certainly interesting to look at how he manipulated inanimate objects to make them look like people; albeit, I've seen many children also do a very elementary form of the same kind of 'art'. And like I said, it's very likely that I just didn't get the message, because I don't normally pay attention to modern art. So I probably have no knowledge of the entire field.
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