Fluxus-Tre Media

Enrico Pedrini (1940-2012) was an Italian visionary, theorist and collector of Conceptual Art. With a career spanning half a century, he continually sought out top-tier work that challenged, moved and surprised the art world. He ultimately championed Anthropological and Conceptual Art with books and articles including John Cage, Happenings and Fluxus (1986), and The Quantic Machine and Second Avant-Garde (1991) in which he discussed the relation between quantum theory and the visual arts movements of the 1960s. Pedrini held a lifelong passion for avant-garde creativity and innovation, an attribute which not only served him well in his career as a lecturer and curator, but also influenced his collecting and enabled him to assemble an extraordinary compendium of artworks distinguished by their quality and breadth. He placed particular emphasis on contemporary movements such as Dada, Fluxus, Minimal Art, Arte Povera, Vienna Aktionism, and Graffiti Art. He curated a number of major international exhibitions in venues such as Studio Oggetto in Milan, the Persano Gallery in Turin, the Musée d’art Moderne et d’art Contemporain in Nice and the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center in New York City, as well as the Taiwanese Pavilion at the 46th Venice Biennale with Wolfgang Becker. First Open is delighted to present this iconic video sculpture by Nam June Paik from Pedrini’s distinguished collection.

Executed in 1973-1975, Fluxus-Tre Media is an alluring audio-visual sculptural work by the internationally recognised ‘father of video art’, Nam June Paik. Having only been in the same private collection, this exemplary work was included in the artist’s solo exhibition at Gallery René Block, New York, in 1975, as well as at the Palazzo Ducale, Carrara, in 1987 and the Galleria Vivita, Florence, in 1987. A visionary who, alongside his contemporaries including John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Joseph Beuys, predicted a future fuelled by the potential of innovation, Paik is best known for being one of the leading members of the Neo-Dada group Fluxus, to which the title of this work alludes. Comprising of a found radio cabinet, a horn-shaped speaker and a television set showing randomly adjusted programmes, this work playfully addresses the impact of the Technological Age, and its transformative integration into everyday contemporary life in the 1960s and ‘70s. In using an old, discarded radio cabinet, the Korean-American artist subtly draws attention to an increasingly outmoded device which was fast becoming a relic of the past. Concealed inside the cabinet, the television set is only partially visible through a small opening in the top centre, creating – and ultimately shattering – the illusion of an operating radio. Similarly, the resonating sound is emitted directly from the television, rendering the speaker a purely aesthetic object, entirely defunct of its original purpose. In ridding each component of its utilitarian function, Paik generates a perversely decorative artwork which humorously adheres to the satirical and nonsensical art of the Dadaists. The fact that today terrestrial television, once celebrated as a shining emblem of the modern world, has already been obliterated by new digital technology only adds a further layer of poignancy to this compelling and prophetic work.