This place is where the house of Nam June Paik, where he lived from 1937 to 1950, used to be. The old hanok was turned into ‘Nam June Paik Memorial House’ in 2017, to celebrate and commemorate his life and art.

Nam June Paik was born into a wealthy family. His grandfather had a dry goods store, which made his family wealthy, and his father owned a textile manufacturing company. Nam June Paik's house was a massive manor which was called ‘Big Gate House’ and covered about 9917m2 of land.

Thanks to their wealthy background, Nam June Paik was able to learn Western music and art from a young age, which piqued his interest in art. In 1950, he went to study aesthetics in Japan, despite the opposition of his family. Then he went to Germany to study philosophy and music, starting a career in art.

In 1964, Nam June Pail went to New York and started his career as an artist, but found a different path of art. It was an innovative and completely new type of art which was not music or fine art. It was performance art, breaking a violin on a stage or cutting a necktie.

Nam June Paik was not praised as an excellent artist from the start. He gained the spotlight of the art scene by creating a unique world of his own, video art, by combining his performances, television, the cutting-edge technology of the time, and satellites.

On the first day of 1984, Nam June Paik’s first video artwork, ‘Good Morning, Mr. Orwell’ went live on the broadcast through satellites. It was the first live performance art broadcasted through a satellite network in the world. And on the first day of 2000, a new millennium, yet another work of Nam June Paik, ‘Tiger Lives’ was broadcast live to the world.

It showed the emergence and development of a new art world with the starting of a new era. Video art, flourished by the works of Nam June Paik, continues to be developed into diverse media art genres.

When Nam June Pail returned to Korea in 1984 for the first time in 34 years, he wanted to find the ‘Big Gate House’ in Changsin-dong where his memory of Korea is the strongest. But the house was no longer there. But he visited the site of the house in Changsin-dong and presented a performance that represent the memories of his youth.

In 2004, when he held the last performance in his life in New York, he was asked by a journalist, ‘what do you want to do the most now?’ and answered, ‘I want to go to Changsin-dong’. Nam June Paik only lived in Changsin-dong for 13 years of his 73 years of life, but it seems that the neighborhood had a special place in his mind as the home of his body and soul.

Nam June Paik Memorial House, where you can see the life and world of art of Nam June Paik, is not a large one. But it’ll be a special experience to take in diverse artworks that represent his career in a space where his footsteps remain vivid in a corner of the town.

Now, we finished Jongno Modern Trail Course 9, the Trail of Life. I believe I got a bit emotional because it was where I lived. I hope my explanation was enough. But I was happy to walk around Changsin-dong for a long while.

It’s time to say goodbye. I think this Trail of Life gave us an opportunity to find out about the stories of people who live in Jongno, walking up and down Naksan Mountain.

It’d have been difficult to climb up the mountain path, and you got sweaty and all. But I believe you loved the view over the city from the peak. And that would’ve made you keep going, like you’ve never been tired, just like how we live our lives.