Tag: Dara Birnbaum

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Dara Birnbaum
Hostage, 1994
six-channel color video with five stereo-channels, audio, interactive laser, custom-designed mounts, Plexiglas shields

Decades before YouTube, artists like Dara Birnbaum were turning pop culture pabulum into thought-provoking video collages. Her 1979 “Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman,” a sequence of looped moments with lots of explosions, is one of the groundbreaking pieces by women in “Total Art: Contemporary Video.” The exhibit begins with video art’s early days and ends with works by some of today’s most compelling artists.

National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave. NW; June 6-Oct. 12, $10; 202-783-5000. (Metro Center)

True confessions of a video art pioneer

How the influential artist discovered the medium by accident