The Other Side of Steel: The Sculpture of John Pai
Korean Cultural Center, New York
Recorded lecture by Professor John Yau, Professor of Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University

The lecture presents a trailblazing sculptor and accomplished professor, John Pai, whose artworks and influence spans disciplines, institutions, and continents. Moved to the US when he was 12 years old and raised by an American family in West Virginia, John Pai is one of the first Korean contemporary artists to make waves in the United States, with his welded mesh-like steel sculptures that garnered attention from the wider contemporary art scene. A graduate of Pratt Institute, he went on to join his alma mater as its youngest faculty member in 1965, where he went on to teach for over 40 years and was a major catalyst behind the growth of the school’s undergraduate sculpture program. Poet, writer, and professor at Rutgers University John Yau explores John Pai’s distinguished career in this lecture, mapping his path and influence on both American and Korean contemporary art over several decades.

John Yau is a poet and critic who has published numerous monographs and books of criticism, including A. R. Penck (1993), In the Realm of Appearances: The Art of Andy Warhol (1993), The Passionate Spectator: Essays on Art and Poetry (2006), A Thing Among Things: The Art of Jasper Johns (2008), Catherine Murphy(2016), Thomas Nozkowski (2017), The Wild Children of William Blake (2017), and Philip Taaffe (2018). His most recent book of poems is Genghis Chan on Drums (2021). Since 2012, he has contributed regularly to the online magazine Hyperallergic. He is a professor at Mason Gross School of the Arts (Rutgers University) and lives in New York.

To watch the recorded lecture, click here