Park Hyun-ki’s Video Inclining Water, which debuted internationally in 1979 at the 15th San Paulo Biennale, constitutes a photographic record of a performance in which the long-haired artist carried a TV whose screen appears to be filled with water. Throughout four sequences of photographs, which show a variable waterline on the screen that corresponds with the angle that the artist holds the TV, the medium of video is reversed in relation to its function as an ideological object and methodology. Such a minimal and conceptual approach to handling video is built into Park’s inventive art language. A performance depicting the artist striking seven different poses was documented and reproduced in the form of monochrome photographs in San Paulo, four of which were specially selected and printed in color for this particular work.
