{"id":52137,"date":"2026-04-13T08:44:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T06:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ludwigforum.de\/?post_type=tribe_events&p=52137"},"modified":"2026-10-27T15:11:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T14:11:52","slug":"nam-june-paik-earth-moon-sun","status":"publish","type":"tribe_events","link":"https:\/\/ludwigforum.de\/en\/event\/nam-june-paik-earth-moon-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"Nam June Paik. Earth, Moon, Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Earth, Moon, Sun<\/em> (1990) is a three-part multi-monitor installation by the video artist Nam June Paik (1932\u20132006) and one of the key Aachen-based works from Peter and Irene Ludwig\u2019s collection. The Ludwigs bought it from Galerie Hans Mayer in D\u00fcsseldorf in 1991, making it the first of the artist\u2019s works to enter their collection.<\/p>

Born in Korea and later based in the United States, Paik is regarded as the father of video art. In the 1950s his passion for the music of Arnold Schoenberg brought him from Tokyo to Germany, where he met figures such as John Cage (1912\u20131992) and Joseph Beuys (1921\u20131986). From 1958 to 1963 he lived in the Rhineland, working alongside the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928\u20132007) at WDR\u2019s Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne. He moved from music into performance art and Fluxus, before later turning to media art; in 1965, he became one of the first artists to work with a portable consumer video camera.<\/p>

Early on, this gave rise to the first of Paik\u2019s multi-monitor installations, which expressed a distinct conception of form and became increasingly sculptural in his later output, as in Earth, Moon, Sun<\/em>. In this work, Paik\u2019s interest in technological progress extends into other recurring themes in his art, above all outer space, the Solar System and space travel. It also attests to his fascination with the interplay of nature and technology, which for him were capable of merging and working in harmony, rather than in opposition. Between the sun and the moon, a large metal globe rises from a ring of flowering daisies. Its welded-aluminium construction holds 36 JVC cathode ray tube televisions. Linked together with black cables, the screens show rapidly changing sequences \u2013 clips of planets, birds, fish, people, technology, science and the environment \u2013 recut and manipulated by Paik from a range of existing film sources, depicting life pulsing across the earth against the backdrop of a networked world. On the wall, the sun and moon glow in contrasting colours, their neon tubes shining vivid red and brilliant white. Alongside the rounded 1960s-style screens, a marble bust of Beethoven graces a crescent moon. Here, the technology of astronomy and space travel meets a long cultural tradition that has time and again invoked the moon as a source of artistic inspiration.<\/p>

Between July 2024 and March 2026 Earth, Moon, Sun<\/em> underwent extensive restoration, which museum visitors were able to follow in a specialised open restoration laboratory. Fully restored, the work is now back on view at Ludwig Forum.<\/p>

The restauration of Earth, Moon, Sun <\/em>was supported by the Peter and Irene Ludiwg Foundation and the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia. Cooperation Partner: RWTH Aachen University.<\/p>

Photo: Nathan Ishar<\/p>

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The three-part multi-monitor installation Earth, Moon, Sun (1990) by the video artist Nam June Paik (1932\u20132006) is one of the key works in the Aachen collection of Peter and Irene Ludwig.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":52112,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_tribe_events_status":"","_tribe_events_status_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"tribe_events_cat":[14],"class_list":["post-52137","tribe_events","type-tribe_events","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tribe_events_cat-exhibition","cat_exhibition"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ludwigforum.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/52137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ludwigforum.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ludwigforum.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tribe_events"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ludwigforum.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ludwigforum.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/52137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54357,"href":"https:\/\/ludwigforum.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/52137\/revisions\/54357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ludwigforum.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ludwigforum.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ludwigforum.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52137"},{"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ludwigforum.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events_cat?post=52137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}