On view at Tate Modern from this week until February are thirty television screens playing Global Groove on repeat, embedded in a garden of tropical plants: the installation is called TV Garden and it’s one of Nam June Paik’s iconic works, included in the most comprehensive exploration ever of the late artist’s influence and oeuvre. The former Fluxus member made the work in 1974, and since then it has been seen in different iterations—including at Documenta 6 in Kassel. TV Garden’s television sets may be outdated now but the questions the work prompts are still prescient: are nature and technology opposed or in harmony? Who is winning and what are we fighting against? TV Garden sets the stage for Paik’s unmissable deep dive into the ambivalence of electronics.
