"In Adandoned, the first in the Chaired Anxieties series, Birnbaum enters a studio space that is empty except for a wooden folding chair. Barefoot and in jeans, the artist is seen from the neck down; her face is glimpsed only briefly. Performing in front of a fixed camera, Birnbaum enacts a...
"In Slewed, the second exercise in the Chaired Anxieties series, Dara Birnbaum again performs alone in front of a stationary camera, The artist's interactions with the wooden folding chair take on a heightened physical and psychological intensity. Birnbaum is first seen from the waist down,...
"In Addendum: Autism, the artist faces the stationary camera in direct address; she confronts the viewer one-on-one, her head filling the frame in close-up. Her mouth slightly open, Dara Birnbaum stares with unblinking intensity into the camera. She performs a series of anxious gestures: she runs...
"In this early performance-based work, Birnbaum investigates the notion of video as a mirror to create a psychological self-portrait. Devising a simple but ingenious formal exercise, she layers real and reflected images to articulate metaphorically the duality of internal and external...
"In the first section of this early video, Dara Birnbaum is seen placing her hands on the surface of a projection screen. Though the screen is glowing with the light of a projector, the surface is blank, foregrounding her gestures and the screen's physical dimensions. The artist's motions seem...
"A stationary video camera obliquely frames a domestic setting: an open doorframe, a wall decorated by a woman's portrait, a closed door leading, perhaps, outisde. A spotlight trained on the scene, however, creates a sense of drama and suspense. Suddenly, human breaths are heard; the spotlight...
Description
Six Movements: Video Works from 1975 is a limited edition boxed set that represents Birnbaum's earliest experiments with the video medium.
These six performance-based works, in which the artist explores a woman's psychological states through physical gestures, are raw, direct, and unmediated. The young Birnbaum appears on camera, alone, as the performer. (By the late 1970s she would no longer appear on-screen, although she would often employ female figures as surrogates.) The pieces introduce themes that recur throughout her work, particularly the articulation of a feminist subtext through the central figure of a woman who is presented as both strong and vulnerable. She investigates the body as a vehicle for intense emotional or psychological manifestations while also foregrounding the relation of the camera/viewer and subject/performer. Although Birnbaum famously broke new ground in video by engaging directly with popular television as source material, these earliest works reveal a link to the Body art and performance-video practices of the generation of artists who immediately preceded her, such as Vito Acconci, Joan Jonas, and Bruce Nauman.
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris, London and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.
Exhibition & Distribution Conditions
Please note: This is a limited edition boxed set. Please contact the EAI office with inquiries about acquisitions and for further information.
