Nam June Paik Art Center presents ÷ / + by Okkyung Lee on July 20, 2021, in celebrating Nam June Paik’s 89th birthday. A renowned cellist, composer, and improviser, Okkyung Lee performs in public museums, sharing intimate and private experience with the audience. With the spirit of Fluxus, breaking boundaries and reconsidering roles of artists and audiences, Lee unveils experimental improvisation raising questions to the frame of conventional concert and the relationship between artists and audiences. Each participant will complete the performance with the artist for 10 minutes respectively in the gallery.

In the unprecedented pandemic which limits the face to face on-site gathering in the museum, what would be the role of art in the society, and how would be personal communications continued? Okkyung Lee has tried to explore these questions by performing site-specific improvisation at Nam June Paik Art Center. Sharing temporal, spatial, sonic experience in a physical gallery, the artist and audiences might get healed as if a small gift was given from Nam June Paik.

Okkyung Lee
Okkyung Lee is a cellist, composer, and improviser who moves freely between artistic disciplines and contingencies. Since 2000 she has worked in disparate contexts as a solo artist and collaborator with creators in a wide range of disciplines. A native of South Korea, Lee has taken a broad array of inspirations—including noise, improvisation, jazz, western classical, and the traditional and popular music of her homeland—and used them to forge a highly distinctive approach. Her curiosity and a determined sense of exploration guide the work she has made in disparate contexts.
She has appeared on more than 30 albums, including the latest release Yeo-Neun on Shelter Press, and Teum (The Silvery Slit), written for acclaimed Acousmonium by GRM and live cello, released on GRM Portraits/Editions Mego. She often develops site-specific works, responding to its architecture, audience, or objects surrounding her, producing an immersive experience that also challenges the built-in hierarchy in traditional concert settings. She has been commissioned to compose music and assemble projects for Time Spans Festival (New York, USA), Borealis Festival (Bergen, Norway), Donaueschingen Music Festival (Donaueschingen, Germany) and Nam June Paik Art Center (Yong-In, South Korea). She has performed in Museum of Modern Art (New York), Whitney Museums of American Art (New York, USA), Serpentine Galleries (London, UK), White Cube Galleries (London, UK) and many others.
She received a dual bachelor’s degree in Contemporary Writing & Production and Film Scoring from Berklee College of Music and a master’s degree in Contemporary Improvisation from New England Conservatory of Music.