# Nam June Paik artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/nam-june-paik/
Profile generated: 2026-08-19T14:30:00Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1932-07-20
- Death date: 2006-01-29
- Nationality: South Korean, American
- Movements: Fluxus, Video art, Media art, International postwar avant-garde
- Common media: Video and electronic moving images, Television monitors and multi-monitor installations, Performance and action music, Robotic and sculptural constructions, Broadcast television projects, Works on paper, prints, editions, and mixed media

## Portrait

![Nam June Paik](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Paik_Nam_June_%28cropped%29.jpg)
김언호 · Public domain
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paik_Nam_June_(cropped).jpg

## About Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik (1932–2006) was a Korean-born artist and composer whose career unfolded across Asia, Europe, and the United States. Trained in classical music and musicology, he encountered experimental composers in postwar Germany and joined Fluxus in the early 1960s. His practice moved from action music and performance into altered televisions, electronic images, video, robots, broadcast projects, and large monitor-based installations. Paik treated technology as both an artistic material and a cultural environment, linking electronic communication with play, participation, and performance. After moving to New York in 1964, he developed a long collaboration with cellist Charlotte Moorman and became a central figure in the emergence of video as an artistic medium. Collectors encounter his work in varied forms, including works on paper, prints, editions, sculptural objects, and mixed-media constructions, as well as technically complex video installations. That breadth makes careful identification of medium, date, edition status, and component completeness especially important.

## Common works and media

Auction and appraisal contexts may include prints, drawings and other works on paper, signed or numbered editions, sculptural and mixed-media objects, robotic figures, altered televisions, video works, and multi-monitor installations. Paik also created performances and broadcast projects, although these may involve documentation, edition information, technical equipment, or installation instructions rather than a conventional standalone object. For any electronic or editioned work, record the title, date, dimensions, signature and inscriptions, edition number, supplied components, playback media, and available provenance before selecting comparables.

## Market and appraisal context

Paik's auction market spans works on paper and editions through unique mixed-media sculptures and technically complex video installations. Appraisal should begin with comparables that match the medium, dimensions, date, edition, and subject rather than with an artist-wide average. For electronic works, the condition and completeness of monitors, playback equipment, media carriers, wiring, and other components should be documented. Signature, inscriptions, provenance, exhibition history, catalogue references, and attribution confidence also matter. Public auction records can support comparison, but reported prices may treat buyer's premiums and fees differently, while private sales and incomplete feeds remain outside the visible dataset. A final opinion should therefore reconcile documentary evidence, physical condition, technical completeness, and genuinely comparable sales.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine artist-identity research with matched public auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. Private sales, incomplete feeds, fee-reporting differences, and attribution changes may not be fully represented.

## Sources

- The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/4469
- Tate: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/nam-june-paik-6380
- Bibliothèque nationale de France: https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb123685444
- Nam June Paik: https://www.paikstudios.com/
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/112271274/
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q158056
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500118744
- IdRef: https://www.idref.fr/032706723
- Appraisily: https://appraisily.com/artist/nam-june-paik/
- Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paik_Nam_June_(cropped).jpg