Paik, Nam June; Vostell, Wolf

Paik and Vostell both lived in Cologne in 1962, and had known each other for some time. They shared a common interest in subjecting TV to the artistic will, but did not collaborate. Vostell applied to TV his notion of «Décollage»—a laceration and alteration of images that was the opposite of the building up process of «Collage.» Paik's approach originated in the field of electronic music. His show «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television,» 1963, was the first important signal of an emergent new art-form. Shortly afterwards, Vostell exhibited his own TV works in the New York show «Television Décollage,» but his pieces did not have the complexity of Paik's very precisely differentiated TV picture modifications. The picture of Paik, cables, and then Vostell is almost symbolic in view of the fact that Paik has always striven to come to grips with electronics, while Vostell has tended to rely on the assistance of technicians.