The Screen That Became a Single Line · Elias Thorn
Site: Elias Thorn / Shelter
Source: https://elias-thorn.com/en/rooms/records/zen-for-tv/
Language: en
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The Screen That Became a Single Line

The television is on, but its image has narrowed to a thin line of light. This is Nam June Paik’s Zen for TV, a 1963 work represented at the Smithsonian American Art Museum by a 1976 version. It is silent.

According to the museum, one television arrived broken for the 1963 exhibition. Paik retained the resulting line and named the work in reference to Zen. He later made other versions.

The line gives a viewer few events to follow. Watching it may bring one’s own expectation into focus: a changing image, a story, a sign that something has begun. This is one possible reading of the work.

Object details and the account of its origin follow the Smithsonian American Art Museum, accession 2006.20. The final paragraph is commentary, not an artist’s statement. The museum page includes an image of the work.

Open source ↗ (https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/zen-tv-76252)

Smithsonian American Art Museum · Zen for TV (https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/zen-tv-76252)

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