An open-air screening of videos by Dara Birnbaum and Dan Graham. This screening will feature individual videos by each artist, as well as a collaborative work. The program highlights resonances between the video works of these influential and provocative artists, as well as points of departure and difference.
DARA BIRNBAUM AND DAN GRAHAM VIDEO SCREENING AT DIA
Dia will host an open-air screening of videos by Dara Birnbaum and Dan
Graham. The screening, which will take place on Dia's rooftop, in
Graham's "Rooftop Urban Park Project" of 1991, is co-hosted by
Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) as part of an ongoing series of events
celebrating its 30th anniversary. This event was originally scheduled
for September 2001.
This screening will feature individual videos by each artist, as well as
a collaborative work. The program highlights resonances between the
video works of these influential and provocative artists, as well as
points of departure and difference. Birnbaum and Graham apply
distinctive strategies to the analysis of the social function and
meaning of popular culture, architecture, public and private space, and
mass media.
The program includes the premiere of Birnbaum's "Attack Piece," a video
installation that was originally produced in 1975 and recently restored
through EAI's Preservation Program; a collaborative work by Birnbaum and
Graham that analyzes local TV news; key tapes by Birnbaum that critique
popular culture, including "Kiss The Girls: Make Them Cry" (1979); works
by Graham that investigate cultural phenomena, including his 1983
document of the Hardcore band Minor Threat; and rarely seen short
commissions by Birnbaum.
Friday, June 7, 2002, 8:30 pm
ADMISSION
Free
Dara Birnbaum was born in New York City, where she lives and works.
Birnbaum received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Carnegie
Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the
San Francisco Art Institute. In her videotapes and multi-media
installations, Birnbaum often uses the media's technology to subvert,
critique, or deconstruct mass-media images. Birnbaum's work has been
presented in retrospective exhibitions at Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland;
Kunstmuseum, Berne, Switzerland; and American Film Institute, Los
Angeles.
Dan Graham was born in Urbana, Illinois, and lives and works in New York
City. Since the mid-1960s, he has produced a body of art and theory that
engages the historical, social, and ideological functions of
contemporary cultural systems. Architecture, popular music, video, and
television are among the focuses of his investigations, which are
articulated in essays, performances, installations, videotapes and
architectural/sculptural designs. Graham's work has been exhibited in
retrospective exhibitions at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Holland; Museum
of Modern Art, Oxford, England; Kunsthalle, Berne, Switzerland; and the
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth.
DIA
Founded in 1974, Dia Art Foundation plays a vital and singular role
among visual arts institutions nationally and internationally by
initiating, supporting, presenting, and preserving art projects, and by
serving as a primary locus for interdisciplinary art and criticism. Dia
presents a program of exhibitions at Dia Center for the Arts in Chelsea,
New York City. Supplementary programming at Dia Center for the Arts
includes artists' projects for the web, lectures, poetry readings, film
and video screenings, performances, scholarly research and publications,
symposia, and an arts education program that serves area students.
Exhibition hours at Dia Center for the Arts during the 2001-2002 season
are Wednesday through Sunday, 12 noon to 6 pm, through June 16, 2002.
ELECTRONIC ARTS INTERMIX
Electronic Arts Intermix is a nonprofit media arts organization that is
one of the world's leading resources for artists' video and new media.
Founded in 1971, EAI serves artists, educators, curators, and diverse
audiences through a wide range of programs, including the distribution
of an international collection of artists' tapes, ranging from
historical works of the 1960s to new works by emerging media artists.
Image: Dan Graham: Rooftop Urban Park Project
Dia Center for the Arts, 548 West 22nd Street (between 10th and 11th
avenues), New York City