How has video opened up new possibilities for social change over the past six decades? Artists Amar Kanwar and Dara Birnbaum and members of the collective New Red Order (NRO) join us to discuss the legacy of video as a means of political change and societal transformation. Stuart Comer, The Lonti Ebers Chief Curator of Media and Performance, and Michelle Kuo, The Marlene Hess Curator of Painting and Sculpture, moderate the conversation and a Q&A with the audience. This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Signals: How Video Transformed the World.
The program will take place in English and is free with advance registration.
Speakers
Amar Kanwar was born in 1964 in New Delhi, India, where he currently lives and works. Kanwar has distinguished himself through films and multimedia works that explore the politics of power, violence, and justice. His multilayered installations originate in narratives often drawn from zones of conflict and are characterized by a unique poetic approach to the personal, the social, and the political. Recent solo exhibitions of Kanwar’s work have been held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2022), Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai, and NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery (2020), Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (2019), Tate Modern, London (2018), Minneapolis Institute of Arts (2018), and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York (2018), among others. Kanwar participated in Documenta 11, 12, 13, and 14 in Kassel, Germany (2002, 2007, 2012, 2017), and in the Kochi-Muziris Biennial, India (2022).
Dara Birnbaum was born in 1946 in New York, where she continues to live and work. Birnbaum received a bachelor of architecture degree from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, a BFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute, and a certificate in video and electronic editing at the Video Study Center at the New School for Social Research, New York. Birnbaum’s pioneering video, media, and installation work has, over the past four decades, addressed the ideological and the aesthetic character of mass media imagery and has been considered fundamental to our understanding the history of media art. She was one of the first artists to design complex and innovative installations that juxtapose imagery from multiple sources while also integrating three-dimensional (large-scale photographs, sculptural, or architectural) elements into the work. She is known for her groundbreaking strategies and for using manipulated television footage. Birnbaum’s work has been exhibited at MoMA PS1, New York (2019), National Portrait Gallery, London (2018), Cleveland Museum of Art (2018), and South London Gallery (2011), with major retrospectives at the Serralves Foundation, Porto, (2010), S.M.A.K. Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent (2009), The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008), and Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2006), among others. Her work was exhibited in Documenta 7, 8, and 9. Birnbaum has been the recipient of various distinguished awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2021), the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Arts Residency (2011), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2011), and the prestigious United States Artists Fellowship (2010). In 2016 she was recognized and honored for her work by the Kitchen, New York, at their annual gala. She was the first woman in video to receive the prestigious Maya Deren Award from the American Film Institute, in 1987. In February 2017, Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art created the Birnbaum Award in the artist’s honor.
New Red Order (NRO) is a public secret society with a rotating and expanding cast, facilitated by core contributors Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, and Jackson Polys. Working with an interdisciplinary network of Informants, the NRO co-produces video, performance, and installation works that confront desires for Indigeneity and obstacles to Indigenous growth and agency. New Red Order has exhibited work at the Whitney Biennial 2019, Toronto Biennial 2019, Artists Space, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, among others.
Accessibility
American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and live captioning is available for public programs upon request with two weeks’ advance notice. MoMA will make every effort to provide accommodation for requests made with less than two weeks’ notice. Please contact [email protected] to make a request for these accommodations.
This theater is equipped with an induction loop that transmits directly to hearing aids with T-coils.
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Access and Community Programs are supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
Leadership support for Adult and Academic Programs is provided by the Carroll and Milton Petrie Education Program Endowment, and Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Endowment.
Major funding is provided by the Agnes Gund Education Endowment Fund for Public Programs, The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art Endowment for Educational Programs, and the Jeanne Thayer Young Scholars Fund.
Additional support is provided by Gretchen Jordan.