Dara Birnbaum has been recognized internationally for her video and installation works. Her work has been exhibited in documenta, the Whitney Biennial, and the Carnegie International. Other outlets for her work have included broadcast television, MTV, video/music clubs, and public spaces such as New York's Grand Central Station. She was part of the first generation of video artists who appropriated and deconstructed television imagery. Her interest in reexamining mass-media representation has itself been a response both to the changing nature of access to television and to advances in video technology. Her interactive Rio Videowall, installed in Atlanta in 1989, was heralded as the first large-scale permanent outdoor video installation in the United States. Let's Entertain includes two of her early videos. Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-1979) is a deconstruction and reconstruction of images from the popular 1970s television series. Through Birnbaum's stuttering edits, the "real" woman is repeatedly symbolically transformed into the superhero, Wonder Woman, subverting conventional meanings. Kiss the Girls: Make Them Cry (1979) is a bold deconstruction of the formulas of gender representation in pop culture imagery and music. Birnbaum isolates and repeats moments from the TV game show Hollywood Squares to expose the gendered, stereotyped gestures of its celebrity participants while spelling out the lyrics of disco songs of the era (one of which gives the piece its title). The work offers a powerful analysis of the meaning of gestures in our media-saturated society.
