Jeju's shamanistic rituals are explored through Nam June Paik

Korean Heritage

Published: 14 Jun. 2023, 15:48 Updated: 14 Jun. 2023, 17:02

Jeju's shamanistic rituals are explored through Nam June Paik

Renowned video artist Nam June Paik performs gut on his birthday, July 20, 1990, in Seoul, for Joseph Beuys, Paik’s good friend who led the avant-garde Fluxus movement with him and other artists. [CHOI JAE-YOUNG]

Jeju Island is known to be home to 18,000 gods that the islanders carry out a number of rituals in honor of throughout the year to pray for safety as well as big catches for the fishermen and haenyeo (women divers) — two of the main jobs of Jeju islanders. Such shamanistic rituals, known as gut, are a deeply rooted tradition for the islanders with many shrines dotted throughout the island.

In an attempt to shed light on the island’s different types of gut, Jeju Island Stone Park and Galley Nouveau, have organized a special exhibit at the Stone Park’s 500 Generals Gallery and decided to tell the story through none other than the renowned video artist Nam June Paik (1932-2006), who was also often dubbed as the “techno-shaman.” The exhibit begins Friday and runs until Aug. 31.

Paik performs gut on July 20, 1990, in his own avant-garde-style, together with a real shaman, pictured behind him. [CHOI JAE-YOUNG]

The exhibit, which is divided into five sections, begins with pictures taken by photojournalist Choi Jae-young on July 20, 1990 of Paik holding a gut performance in Seoul for Joseph Beuys, Paik’s good friend who led the avant-garde Fluxus movement with him and other artists. It is said that Paik and Beuys promised to hold a gut together to wish good luck for the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul. But the promise could not be kept due to Beuys’ sudden death that year. Five years later, Paik decided to hold a gut for his dear friend on his own birthday to comfort his soul and to show that the gut he’d prepared was a fusion of Eastern traditions and Western avant-garde art, which Paik continued to pursue.

According to Choi, the gut conducted in Paik’s style was “indeed one abstruse gut.”

“He looked like a real shaman communicating as a medium with the gods,” recalled Choi. “All the participants were absorbed in the gut performance and I too, holding the camera, was trying very hard to capture every moment of it.”

Choi said a bolt of lightning struck a large zelkova tree on that evening, which was standing in the middle of the garden where the gut performance was being held. When Paik heard the story a couple of days later, he was pleased saying that his friend “Beuys must have paid a visit.”

Yeongdeung Gut performed in Jeju's Goseong-ri in Seogwipo involves going into the ocean. [CHOI JAE-YOUNG]

Paik had always been captivated by shamanism. From the start, he introduced Korean shamanistic tradition to video art. During his first solo show in 1963 titled “Exposition of Music: Electronic Television” in Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, Germany, he hung a bleeding bull’s head under the top of the main entrance to the gallery. The bull’s head, in Korean tradition, signifies the boundary between the secular world and the holy world. He described his exhibition as a kind of gut, summoning the gods living in the nearby Mount Parnassus.

He also often compared his practice of working as an artist to that of a shaman by saying, “While working, I remain unconscious. I am profoundly influenced by a shaman, or mudang.”

Paik’s facial expressions captured in Choi’s photographs clearly illustrate what Paik was talking about.

For Jeju's Jamsu Gut in Gimnyeong in Jeju City, visitors bring the colorful ribbons to be tied around the shaman, or mudang. [CHOI JAE-YOUNG]

The second section presents some of Paik’s video artworks while the third section displays Paik’s artworks using obangsaek, or the traditional Korean color spectrum of red, blue, yellow, white and black, which are also the five colors often used during shamanistic rituals. The fourth section exhibits works related to Paik’s music. As a composer, he worked alongside musicians like David Bowie, Peter Gabriel and John Cage, who was also one of the main members of the Fluxus movement. The final section has Paik’s sketches and some more photographs of Jeju Island’s different types of gut.

Eunsanbyeolsin Gut of Buyeo in South Chungcheong [CHOI JAE-YOUNG]

“We hope that Paik’s art world, which realized the artistic sublimation of shamanism, will be creatively reinterpreted through this exhibition at the Jeju Island Stone Park which embraces the myths of Seolmundae Halmang [a grandma god who created Jeju Island],” said an official from the park, adding that he hopes that it will become a bridge to promote Jeju gut to the world by combining Paik’s passion and heart for Korea’s shamanistic rituals.

BY YIM SEUNG-HYE [yim.seunghye@joongang.co.kr]