Dara Birnbaum, Hostage, 1994, partial installation view at Paula Cooper Gallery, six-channel color video with five stereo-channels, audio, interactive laser, custom-designed mounts, Plexiglas shields. Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery, New York.

Dara Birnbaum’s deconstructive investigation of mass-media conventions and idioms has proven influential and enduring since she began showing her work in the late ’70s. This is why we enthusiastically agreed to work with Birnbaum on preparing the first comprehensive catalogue of her work in English for her upcoming touring retrospective at S.M.A.K. in Ghent. The dearth of in-depth scholarship focusing on Birnbaum’s work was remarkable to us. From our first research excursions into Birnbaum’s vast archive in her New York City studio, we encountered materials both anticipated and surprising. There were the instantly recognized clips from superhero cartoons, scripts, and storyboards from her celebrated single-channel videos, and myriad xeroxes of graphics that appear in the startling imagery of the later installations. However, the precise renderings from her early architectural career and the skillful but more private self-portraits and drawings highlighted other nuanced perspectives. Exceedingly articulate and exacting, Birnbaum doesn’t sacrifice humor or sentiment. Especially invigorating, in this current political climate, is her visual and intellectual acuity, her feminism, her criticality, and her ability to re-present our culture in ways that awaken us to the repercussions of our own passive consumption.

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Issue 104 Summer 2008