No artist had bigger influence, in imagine and fulfill artistically the dynamic of video art and television, from the Korean artist Nam June Paik. Through a wide range of installations, video films, productions of world television, films and performances, Paik delimited again our perceptions for the moving picture in modern art.
On Thursday the 12th of May opens at the art gallery 'ASTROLAVOS artlife' (Irodotou 11, Kolonaki, tel: 210 7221200, 4, fax: 210 7221304, www.astrolavos.gr) an engraving exhibition of this important artist. The works, mainly lithographs, a painted lithograph and lithographs-offset, are from artist's different periods - from the decade of 60’ till the most recent works of the last years. Basic link of all the engravings that will be presented in the exhibition is the obsession of Paik with television, which is approached through a romantic and at first sight naive look. Spaceships and stellar symbols, anthropomorphous robots, Japanese ideograms and mathematic signs, small people that remind children's paintings, half moons and many televisions, that occasionally replace human faces or part of their bodies; compose quaint pictures, that are lost behind faint, wavy lines such as children’s smudges that the wind blows. It is about original works with symbolisms, as well as questions that the artist puts through his work, concerning the person and his relations to nature and the world that surrounds him, his anxiety for the relation between male and female, but also the effects and the requirements that the modern way of life imposes, transforming the person into a robot, that neither can come through and that's why it is represented with the hands raised and open, in the position that someone has when he surrenders. It is about engravings that under the outward simplicity they have, while their style refers to the art of primitivism and naive, they conceal the interior anxieties and engrossments of the artist; they are artistic cries of protest of this world nomad and concern every thinking person beyond racial, class, age or other discriminations. These works are characterized, except for the directness and the singularity that brings the line, the pencil and the artists drawing, by the unique sense of humor that they emit, as well as the specific way of aesthetic approach from Paik, even in the simplest of these subjects.
Finally, in the two lithographs-offset, entitled "Homage to John Cage", except the artistic composition and the handling of the photography in the artists engraving, his especial love for music and its influence in his work is revealed.

Paik's influence in art of the last years of 20th century is very important and it's worth while for someone to see, beyond his works in video, the installations or the performances, his engraving work, as another artistic point of this important artist.
Duration of exhibition: until 11th of June.