Cleaning up the Studio

At the beginning of Cleaning up the Studio, the eye of the camera guides the observer’s gaze over a chaotic workshop scene. All sorts of cans, tools, and electronics are set about on drawers, work tables, and industrial shelves, revealing themselves to the viewer. There is a busy working atmosphere, which the occupant seems to have left only briefly to take a breather.

Shortly before his death in 2006, the video art pioneer Nam June Paik sold his Manhattan studio as a room-filling installation to the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, South Korea. It is not uncommon for curious eyes to pierce after the death of renowned artists to focus on the remnants of the studio, which are revered as sacred and through which the conservation of the artistic aura seems possible.

For this video work, after visiting the aforementioned reconstruction of Paik’s legacy, Jankowski decided to hire the cleaning company “Beautiful Cleaning.” Professionally following their instructions, the work becomes a testimony to the temporary profanization of a world of things that had previously been considered a romanticized proxy for the artistic genius. While the temporary appropriation and the subsequent redefinition of spaces constantly plays a major role in Jankowski’s artistic approach, Cleaning up the Studio simultaneously addresses the nebulous transition between still-profession and already-calling. At the same time, it draws attention to the magical aftermath of this calling beyond death, which is further underscored by the ritualistic and devotional atmosphere during the cleaning process.