Erinnerung an das 20. Jahrhundert

With the rapid upswing of mass media in the postwar years the cult around stars and celebrities reached a hitherto unknown scale. Film, television, and the boulevard press were the catalysts for dreams of fame and honor, making actresses like Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor icons of popular culture. As a reaction to the media’s propagation of these contemporary myths, Nam June Paik created the installation Memory of the 20th century: Marilyn Monroe. In 1962 the artist collected approximately two hundred international newspaper reports on the death of Marilyn Monroe. He first presented them scattered across the floor, and later combined these journals and magazines with an independently designed work, a gramophone cupboard, which contained prepared records. In 1992, for reasons of preservation Paik eventually decided to no longer exhibit the work in its original form, but only as a slide show.