SERPENTINE GALLERY, SKETCH
& PICTUREHOUSE CINEMAS presents
Dara Birnbaum
with Dara Birnbaum & Hans Ulrich Obrist in conversation
Sunday 11 October
3.30pm
Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman
1978, 9: 6mins
Acclaimed video using pirated television material, Birnbaum spliced together every transformation scene – from human to superhero - in an episode of the popular 70s TV show Wonder Woman. Birnbaum’s appropriation and re-editing of mass-media imagery betrays not only her structuralist film background, but also a pioneering appropriation of mainstream television to relay a political comment on the mediation of female imagery within the systems of contemporary popular culture.
Pop-Pop Video: Kojak/Wang
1980, 3.20mins
Birnbaum’s edit of a Kojak shootout with a Wang computer advert replaces gunfire with computer lasers implying the relation of advancing technology to destruction and violence.
Remy/Grand Central: Trains and Boats and Planes
1980, 4.20mins
Commissioned by Remy Martin for Grand Central Station, New York, Birnbaum juxtaposes appropriated footage with a woman drinking Remy on a train platform in a comment on the prevalence in the mass media to objectify women to sell products.
New Music Shorts:
Radio Fire Fight
1981, 2mins
Branca Symphony No. 1
1981, 3mins
Birnbaum’s music videos for Radio Fire Fight (Jules Baptiste and Lefferts Brown) at the Mudd Club and Glenn Branca's ‘Symphony No.1’ at The Performing Garage.
Fire!/Hendrix
1982, 3.20mins
Commissioned by VideoGram International, Birnbaum utilises the language of a music video to again critique consumerism and its relationship with a female protagonist or image within advertising.
Artbreak, MTV Networks, Inc.
1987, 0:30mins
Commissioned by MTV for a 30-second ‘Artbreak’ this short again focuses on the representation of women, this time within the history of animation.
TRANSVOICES: transgressions
1992, 0:60mins
Commissioned as part of a series of one-minute shorts by US and French artists and filmmakers relating to national and cultural identity, Birnbaum traces the geopolitical history of both countries.
Canon: Taking to the Streets
1990, 10:02mins
Birnbaum uses the original protagonists video footage from the 1987 Princeton ‘Take Back the Night’ march to reveal the movements potential to develop political awareness through personalized experience.
Damnation of Faust Trilogy
1983-1987, 22 min.
Evocation
1983, 10:02
Will-O'-The-Wisp
1985, 5:46
Charming Landscape
1987, 6:30
Based on Wagners 'Faust', this trilogy explores the struggle to express personal identity and conflicting forms of social restraint in a series of free form, non-linear videos.
All films courtesy the artist and Wilkinson, London
Dara Birnbaum lives and works in New York and has recently presented a major retrospective at SMAK, Ghent; traveling to the Museu Fundação Serralves, Porto. Previous major solo exhibitions and career overviews include KUNSTHALLE Wien and the Norrtälje Konsthall and retrospective screenings include The American Film Institute, Los Angeles and Washington; Kunsthaus, Zurich; and Kunstmuseum, Bern. She has also exhibited in Documenta VII, VIII and IX, as well as numerous Venice Biennales. Solo international exhibitions and screenings of her work include The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Jewish Museum, New York City; IVAM Centre de Carme, Valencia; and the Musee d'Art Contemporain, Montreal; as well as being included in a multitude of international group shows and museum collections.
Dara Birnbaum has received numerous awards including the Special Jury Prize, Deutscher Videokunstpreis, Südwestfunk, Baden-Baden and Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, 1992; TV Picture Prize, XII Festival International de la Vidéo et des Arts Electroniques, Locarno, Switzerland, 1991; Certificate in Recognition of Service and Contribution to the Arts, Harvard University, 1988; The Maya Deren, American Film Institute Award for Independent Film and Video, 1987; First Prize for Video, San Sebastian Film Festival, 1983
Dara Birnbaum's upcoming exhibition at Wilkinson, London First Statements and then Some… opens 14 October to 22 November.
The Gate
87 Notting Hill Gate
London W11 3JZ
0871 704 2058
gate@picturehouses.co.uk
Tickets £6/5
Tickets available from The Gate
or www.picturehouses.co.uk
Please check with the cinema for information updates
Dara Birnbaum
Technology/Transformation:
Wonder Woman 1978–79
Video, 5:50 mins
Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix
© 2009 Dara Birnbaum
