A TRIP TO NAM
by Izhar Patkin
As it appeared in Point of Contact On Silence (2001)
Vol.5, No.2
Sometime in the late 8O's of the last century, on the occasion of a Whitney Museum Biennial we both participated in, Nam June Paik asked me if I would make some collaborative works with him. This was quite an amazing proposition for someone who, as a teenager, first encountered Paik's work on a trip from Israel to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. I remember, in all my enthusiastic teen authority, declaring that Paik's way was the way! It was a sculpture of God watching TV. Watching himself on TV (a hip Italian TV in white plastic).
Twenty years later, I am having lunch with Nam to discuss our collaborative project but before we get to our business he has a burning question for me.
- "Tell me about your God"
- My God?
- Well yes, the Bible.
- Why?
- I have to do a piece with a biblical theme for a show in Europe, I have never read the Bible and they never taught it in school.
I found it so reassuring that he didn't know the stories of the Bible. I didn't have to pretend that I knew more about Buddha than I actually did. In Hebrew we say:; what a "luxus" (luxury)! Now he would make a biblical sculpture based on my recollections of the Bible and all of Europe would stand still in front of his moving images and project their stories onto it. How very Fluxus!
We started our collaborative sculptures. We introduced our Gods to each other and we sent them on a highway ride without maps of the Diaspora or any other destinations that ex-patriots often make pilgrimage to. What freedom!
Nam was complaining about foot pain.
- Are you Ok?
- Well, sort of. It is to be expected, the Buddha is punishing me for all I have been doing to him.
- What about me? Are you trying to rope me into a Buddhist hall of punishment now? Jews have enough troubles of their own.
- Don't worry! The Buddha can only torture a Buddhist.
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