Allan’n Allen’s Complaint, 1982, video, color, 30:00 min.

In this work, Nam June Paik and Shigeko Kubota brought together two influential American figures of the Beat Generation – the painter and performance-art pioneer Allan Kaprow (1927-2006) and the poet and activist Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). The main theme of this encounter is Kaprow and Ginsberg’s relationships with their Jewish fathers. In this film, Ginsberg is seen disagreeing with his father (the poet and high-school teacher Louis Ginsberg) in two different instances: once during a live poetry reading in 1975, and then again when he posthumously “argues” with recorded statements made by his father. Allan Kaprow also confronts his father (the businessman Barnett Kaprow), who expected him to follow in his footsteps.