{"data":{"id":"5459","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":5459,"topgoose_id":6094,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":5459,"title":"V-yramid","display_artist_text":"Nam June Paik","display_date":"1982","accession_number":"82.11","dimensions":"Overall: 186 3/4 × 85 × 74 in. (474.4 × 215.9 × 188 cm)","medium":"Video installation, color, sound, with forty television sets","department":"collection","classification":"Sculpture","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from the Lemberg Foundation, Inc. in honor of Samuel Lemberg","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eNam June Paik, \u003cem\u003eV-yramid\u003c/em\u003e, 1982. Video installation, color, sound, with forty television sets, overall: 186 3/4 × 85 × 74 in. (474.4 × 215.9 × 188 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Lemberg Foundation, Inc. in honor of Samuel Lemberg 82.11. © Nam June Paik Estate\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eOne of Nam June Paik’s largest-scale video installations, \u003ci\u003eV-yramid \u003c/i\u003ewas created for the artist’s retrospective exhibition at the Whitney. It consists of forty televisions of varying sizes stacked into a pyramidal shape and was designed to fill the galleries floor-to-ceiling. In each of the televisions, a video produced by Paik on custom-made video synthesizer technology pulsates alongside music ranging from popular rock songs to traditional Korean ballads. Central to Paik’s concept for \u003ci\u003eV-yramid\u003c/i\u003e is the notion of duality. Running through many aspects of the work is a tension between two poles—for instance, the contrast between contemporary rock music and traditional Korean music; the fluidity of the video imagery and the architectural rigidity of the pyramid; the high culture of a religious monument and the low culture of television; and, finally, the ancient pyramid form and the era’s cutting-edge technology. Yet Paik did not necessarily see these opposing elements as being in conflict with one another. Indeed, as he noted: “The Egyptian pyramids are the first example of a combination of high art and high tech, because they used many of the cutting edge technologies of their time.”\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"A tall stacked tower of vintage televisions in a gallery corner displaying moving static.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T16:02:28.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T11:59:58.056-05:00","images":[{"id":97023,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/5459/82_11_vw2_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"986","type":"artist"}]}}}}